Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business

Library of American Biography

by Harold C. Livesay

Presents the biography of Andrew Carnegie and the rise of big business. Discusses Carnegies role in reorganizing the whole pattern of industrial activity. Softcover. Carnegie, Andrew, 1835-1919.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Business, College, Historical, American History

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

A specialist in American business history, Harold Livesay was professor of history at Texas A&M University. He earned his B.A. from the University of Delaware in 1966, an M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1970) from The Johns Hopkins University. Prior to his appointment at Texas A&M he taught at the University of Michigan, the State University of New York at Binghamton, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Reviews

[Matt Davenport · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this whole book essentially in a day. Not because I love steel industry history necessarily....just know it’s safe to say I’m writing this review to put off a paper I have to write for class.

Nevertheless, it was somewhat interesting. Andrew Carnegie was a man of polarities, as this book explains. He was a business tycoon in every sense, coming from a poor immigrant family he worked relentlessly to learn from as many people as possible and dominate any industry he entered (telegraphy, railroads, speculating, and ultimately steel). He was one of the first monopoly-owners along with fellas like Rockefeller and Morgan, but he ran his businesses with a very competitive mind. He was for labor rights and was charitable, yet his businesses also often hurt the common man and he definitely “out-maneuvered” a lot of other people into bankruptcy and unemployment in order to strengthen his own wealth.

All that said, for an obscenely wealthy oligarch he was one of the good ones. He (mostly) succeeded through shrewd business practices and true fiscal conservatism instead of entering into price-fixing trusts, and upon retirement gave away his $300 million dollars worth of steel bonds, built millions of dollars worth of churches, libraries, and public services, and upon his death had truthfully given away essentially all of his obscene wealth to society, fulfilling his own somewhat-more humane interpretation of social Darwinism. Certainly not a perfect man, but a man of strong convictions and moral roots who as a whole was a blessing to our society. Without his steel industry, America may never have become the industrial power that it is. And while becoming that level of rich requires an unfortunate level of greed/callousness, he compensated it with levels of charity unrivaled amongst his peers.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short read with so many connections to business and immigration in U.S. History. I loved this book and continually refer to it when I teach this time period to my high school students.

[Agneta · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of book on the fine art of business than a bio but easy reading.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review title: Carnegie, the short version

I picked up this book at a used book sale in a mall partly based on an interest in the subject, but really the author's dedication convinced me: "For Earl Scruggs, banjoist, Bill Cosby, philosopher, Thomas Carlyle, historian, and Mark Harris, professor and novelist". An eclectic crew for what promised to be an eclectic view of an eccentric subject.

I first encountered Carnegie in history through The River Ran Red: Homestead 1892, contemporary accounts of the violent response to the Homestead, Pennsylvania strike by Carnegie's company. Carnegie learned business in the railroads, which were uniquely central to the business management revolution that he and others lead: railroads were huge (demanding capital investment on a new scale), complex (requiring precise communication and planning), and specialized (calling for a broad range of new technical and mechanical skills) (p. 30-33). Carnegie mastered the management of business by quantified metrics on the Pennsylvania Railroad and applied it his own business empire of steel. But when he learned the value of investing (using money to earn money, an eye-opening concept to the poor Scotsman) and applied his mastery of metrics to wise investing, he became rich.

In mid career, after some shady speculating and at 33 wanting to secure a lasting effect on the big business world he helped create, Carnegie took stock of his life and planned self-improvements and Carnegie Steel (p. 72). And when he applied his metrics-based approach from railroads to the steel industry (p. 85-86), he built the world's largest steel company.

In time, Carnegie's success at negotiating raw material and shipping rates with his business moghul peers like John D. Rockefeller proved that "size itself could thus contribute to economics of scale." (p. 155). But another lesson learned was that political influence could top dollar negotiations when Carnegie was bested in a bitter rate dispute with the Pennsylvania Railroad by the railroads political lobbying influence (p. 158).

In the end, after selling Carnegie Steel to create US Steel, he gave it all away, as he had promised. Libraries, universities, foundations, were the lasting monument to this powerful and sometimes strange little man (just over 5 feet tall, he was conscious of his lack of physical stature). This biography was short as its subject, available in and intended as a "college paperback edition." It has a brief note on sources but no footnoting so it would serve as freshman-level course reading but not as a scholarly biography. And it is written with verve and style worthy of its subject, and its dedication.

[Matt Leiv · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief summary of the business life of Andrew Carnegie, the man who essentially created the modern steel industry. The book touches on the main points of his career, detailing some of his successes and how they came to be. The time line jumps around a bit however, it doesn't gloss over some of his flaws such as: fleeing the country every time he was in danger of bad press. A few facts: he took up to 6 months a year off after becoming wealthy, he was highly hypocritical, he gave away a vast majority of his earnings for philanthropy, his main skill was in management and creating teams of experts to advise him in all aspects of his business. Best summed up by a closing quote, "Carnegie had fulfilled the American dream in its fullest glory- poor immigrant boy to richest man in the world". Quick easy read I would recommend.

[Sunny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), a biography, the main focus is on his career;
how a son of poor Scottish immigrant built and led industrial sized business.
Carnegie built up his fortune from being a first generation venture capitalist and applied 'fact-based' management tools to build his steel empire.

While reading about Carnegie's fact-based business management tools, I was thinking, 'So it was Carnegie who started all this stressful modern cooperation empolyee's lives-everything measured and evaluated'

Started reading about Carnegie, because I got curious about his gifts of libraries.
Apparently, this was a wrong book for that purpose.
There's only a handful of description of his 'giving libraries' story.
From the last chapter, "He (Carnegie) gave 3,000 libraries costing 6 million, and used by millions of people a day in 1925."

[Alison Zoccola · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for a class called "Economic History of the United States Since 1865" or as the professor for that class prefers to call it, "American Capitalism 1865-Present." The author is quite sympathetic to Carnegie, but without mythologizing him. Livesay shows how Carnegie had many fortuitous encounters and positions during his rise which allowed him to become the steel magnate that he did, and depicts his flaws, especially his all-consuming ruthlessness. Overall, it sympathetically portrays Carnegie while using him to mythologize the early days of American capitalism after the Civil War. If you're looking for a short primer on Carnegie's origins, rise, and attainment of peak power--and the context in which it occurred--this book is a good pick but should be read with a critical eye.

[Andre Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

You really need to have a solid background in business or have taken a class to understand the concepts described in this book. The narrative is very fawning and is missing a lot of biographical information. I also think it could benefit from more visuals. Ultimately, this is not an entertaining read unless you enjoy talking about the nuances of stocks and bonds and ruthless capitalism.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Underrated.

[Sam Schuhler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the writing was good and Carnegie was a very interesting guy, glad I read it even though I had no prior exposure to business in the late 1800s

[Kari · Rating 2 out of 5]

A concise look at Andrew Carnegie as a businessman. Rather dry and certainly sympathetic to "Andy," it's nonetheless an interesting look into his rise to power from "poor telegraph boy/immigrant" to "richest man in the world." However, the author doesn't turn a blind eye to Carnegie's unsavory characteristics. To have been a fly on the wall for some of his business dealings would have been an interesting thing indeed.

One is left to wonder in this age of reexamination of US leaders, does Carnegie's end of life philanthropy make up for his ruthlessness in business? Just as I ponder the writings and inventions of Jefferson and whether they make up for his use of slavery, I may never quite decide.

[Joel Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

i thought "and the Rise of Big Business" was an afterthought for the title, but no... the book focuses more on the history of the railroad/steel businesses than it does Andy's life. granted, Andy was a raging workaholic and, thus, much of his life WAS business; however, i would liked to have read more of his behind-the-scene, personal life details to get a fuller sense of who he really was as a person.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like business and you like history, you should read this short (200 pages) book. I didn't know much about Carnegie, so I found this reasonably interesting, but certainly not revelatory.

This is not a thought-provoking book unless you are interested in the business side and business lessons of Carnegie's life (as opposed to Titan, Rockefeller's 700 page, highly nuanced biography).

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Considering that the publisher sent it to me blind as a potential textbook supplement, I wasn't expecting much. It's a utilitarian read, but it did help me to understand two of the major industries in western PA: coal and steel.

[Chloe Glynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admittedly did not finish the book. How a man comes to be is far more interesting than how he stays that way. In that tale of becoming, Livesay describes both of the people, time, and place who moulded Carnegie and the fiery will that urged him into being.

[Audrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

THIS IS NOT A BIOGRAPHY - it's an explanation of how big business worked. Very dry.