Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick

Andrew Carnegie “The Man of Steel”

Andrew Carnegie’s life story is a classic “rags to riches” dream. Carnegie was the son of a poor weaver from Scotland and immigrated to the United States in 1848. Carnegie worked 60 hours a week and still found time to take a book keeping course at night. Carnegie went on to work for Wetsern Union as a messenger and was later hired as a personal telegrapher and secretary for a superintendent of Pennsylvania Railroad’s western division. Carnegie slowly moved up within the company and gained much knowledge in investments and by the 1870s he built his own steel mill. By the 1890s, Carnegie became the nation’s steel business leader.

Henry Clay Frick

The end of the nineteenth century was a time of increasing labor unrest in the United States. This was the time of rapid technological advancement and unfit working conditions for the laboring population.

Henry C. Frick (1849-1919) was born in Pennsylvania. Frick, likel as Andrew Carnegie, came from humble origins. Frick attended college although he didn’t graduate and started a business partnership with family and friends within the steel industry, Frick Coke Company. During his honeymoon in New York, Frick met Andrew Carnegie and in 1889 Frick became the president of Andrew Carnegie’s company, Carnegie’s Steel Company.  At age 21, Frick became a successful businessmen and a millionaire. During the 1880s, after joining business with Carnegie, his fortune grew dramatically. 

Contributed by Mayra Gutierrez

References:
Ingham, John N. "'Fort Frick' and the Amalgamated: The Homestead Lockout of 1892 in Historical Perspective." Labour / Le Travail 31.(1993): 329-340. America: History & Life. EBSCO. Web. 3 Mar. 2011.

Kashatus, William C. "`If you men don't withdraw, we will mow every one of you down.'." American History 35.1 (2000): 52. America: History & Life. EBSCO. Web. 3 Mar. 2011