Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Harold C. Livesay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0321043731 | ISBN-13: 978-0321043733 | Edition: 2nd

The titles in the Library of American Biography Series make ideal supplements for American History Survey courses or other courses in American history where figures in history are explored. Paperback, brief, and inexpensive, each interpretative biography in this series focuses on a figure whose actions and ideas significantly influenced the course of American history and national life. At the same time, each biography relates the life of its subject to the broader themes and developments of the times.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Editor's Preface

The term "industrial revolution" has become a catch phrase that obscures rather than clarifies. All too often it conveys the impression that the economic process which transformed the modern world began with an event at some point in eighteenthcentury England, from which all subsequent consequences proceeded smoothly and continuously.

The actuality was far more complex. The basic changes stretched over two hundred years and are not yet over. They involved not only the new technology of machines, but also profound alterations in the organization of work and in habits of the mind.

Andrew Carnegie exemplified one phase of the change. He arrived in the United States at a crucial moment in its development. When the small boy Andy and his family left Scotland, British industrialization was well underway; indeed, their migration resulted from one of its unexpected consequences. When the Carnegies reached Pittsburgh, Americans had already begun to move in the same direction; the founding of the early manufacturing mills at Lowell, Massachusetts, was decades past. Significantly, Carnegie's first job was as a bobbin boy in a textile mill. But both countries had taken only the first hesitant steps in industrialization. Manufacturing was still primarily a rural activity and still small in scale.

Carnegie was involved in reorganizing the whole pattern of industrial activity. Early in his career he changed jobs, moving from textiles to the telegraph office and then to the railroads. Those shifts were symbolic insofar as they brought him into contact with the dynamic forces that were altering communications and were creating large regional economic units to replace the earlier, small ones. Much of what he learned about communications and transportation he later ingeniously adapted to the steel industry.

Carnegie also exemplified the habits of mind important at one stage of industrial development. He was a Scot, a fact most clearly manifest in the ethnic links that helped at each point in his career. He showed the capacity to use capital and technicians well, not in a speculative or an exploitive fashion, but to create wealth. That he remained apart from the corporate developments commonly associated with the closing decade of the nineteenth century-as, indeed, did his contemporary Andrew W. Melton-was not an accident. When he finally sold out to United States Steel, he closed his own career and also the stage of development in which he had actively participated. By then, however, as Harold C. Livesay's book shows, Carnegie had helped to establish the foundations of American economic power.

Oscar Handlin

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor's Preface

The term "industrial revolution" has become a catch phrase that obscures rather than clarifies. All too often it conveys the impression that the economic process which transformed the modern world began with an event at some point in eighteenthcentury England, from which all subsequent consequences proceeded smoothly and continuously.

The actuality was far more complex. The basic changes stretched over two hundred years and are not yet over. They involved not only the new technology of machines, but also profound alterations in the organization of work and in habits of the mind.

Andrew Carnegie exemplified one phase of the change. He arrived in the United States at a crucial moment in its development. When the small boy Andy and his family left Scotland, British industrialization was well underway; indeed, their migration resulted from one of its unexpected consequences. When the Carnegies reached Pittsburgh, Americans had already begun to move in the same direction; the founding of the early manufacturing mills at Lowell, Massachusetts, was decades past. Significantly, Carnegie's first job was as a bobbin boy in a textile mill. But both countries had taken only the first hesitant steps in industrialization. Manufacturing was still primarily a rural activity and still small in scale.

Carnegie was involved in reorganizing the whole pattern of industrial activity. Early in his career he changed jobs, moving from textiles to the telegraph office and then to the railroads. Those shifts were symbolic insofar as they brought him into contact with the dynamic forces that were altering communications and were creating large regional economic units to replace the earlier, small ones. Much of what he learned about communications and transportation he later ingeniously adapted to the steel industry.

Carnegie also exemplified the habits of mind important at one stage of industrial development. He was a Scot, a fact most clearly manifest in the ethnic links that helped at each point in his career. He showed the capacity to use capital and technicians well, not in a speculative or an exploitive fashion, but to create wealth. That he remained apart from the corporate developments commonly associated with the closing decade of the nineteenth century-as, indeed, did his contemporary Andrew W. Melton-was not an accident. When he finally sold out to United States Steel, he closed his own career and also the stage of development in which he had actively participated. By then, however, as Harold C. Livesay's book shows, Carnegie had helped to establish the foundations of American economic power.

Oscar Handlin

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Longman; 2nd edition (September 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321043731
• ISBN-13: 978-0321043733
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #967,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an enlightening, informative book of the man and his success, March 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business (Paperback)

I was given this book to read as a requirement of my United States History Class in college. I am 36 years old and had heard of Mr. Carnegie, ie; Carnegie Hall in New York, but knew nothing of the man or his greatness. This book is an easily read biography of Andrew Carnegie and his successes and failures, the latter being few. The book reads easily and quickly, yet covers a great deal of information and circumstances in Carnegies life; letting the reader know and understand Mr. Andrew Carnegie more. I am pleased this was an assigned book and a required reading. I have a much better understanding of the industrial revolution and of Mr. Carnegie. I think anyone needing information on the Industrial Revolution or Andrew Carnegie will find this book very helpful, interesting, easy to read and informative. I certainly did.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Carnegie and the American Dream, January 21, 2003

By 

J. Stuntz "Texas Red" (TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

Andrew Carnegie really epitomized the American Dream. His rags to riches story, while unusual in its extent, was the life every poor person's vision encompassed. His family was poor in Scotland, and even poorer after they immigrated to Pennsylvania. Carnegie's first job in a textile mill paid little, but it was a step in the right direction. Carnegie worked long and hard to support his family, and that hard work paid off eventually.
Once Carnegie had amassed enough money to be deemed `respectable' he began his real climb to unbelievable wealth. He learned management skills while working for the railroad - a very complex business. It was while working for the railroad that Carnegie became obsessed with costs. It was by controlling costs that he was able to make such huge fortunes in the steel industry. His management techniques would probably not work today, because he was such a bully to his management team.
Carnegie's career mirrored the Industrial Revolution as a whole. He used the latest technology and the most efficient practices to make his factories grow. Unlike his competition, he was concerned with costs, not profit itself, because he knew that low costs led to greater profits. He also was different than the rest of the industrialists because he sold his steel mills and retired to become a great philanthropist.
When Carnegie was starting out, he tried to take care of the people who worked for him, but as his business grew, he saw them more as replaceable parts of a machine. He originally thought labor unions were a good thing, but later fiercely and violently resisted strikes. He needed to retain control over all the workers - hiring and firing, working conditions, even how fast workers were supposed to work. He did not allow his workers any control over their work.
Carnegie left a complex legacy. His many charitable gifts, especially the many Carnegie libraries built around the country, were a blessing for the less fortunate. However, his ruthless behavior in constructing his industry cannot be condoned by today's standards of ethical practices. He was definitely a man of his times and should be remembered as just that.
This book is short, readable, and contains interesting facts without overloading the reader.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Industrial revolution, January 28, 2000

By 

Steve (Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business (Paperback)

Funny how it turns out that we only read these books in school. I read this for my first year American History class.

The book revolves around Carnegie and his rise to sucess during the late 19th century and early 20th century.

In the wake of the industrial revolution many indivduals like Carnegie succeeded. We see this with the Rockefellers who were the worlds first billionaires and with Carnegie , who was the first billionaire of the 20th century.

By the integration of horizontal and verticle industries we see how he has accomplished this. Again, the opportunity is here for us as the information age is still in it's infancy.

It involves both aspects from a historical look at an american immigrant and the ideal "American Dream". The economic outlook is equally helpful studying how he valued verticle and horizontal integration of industries.

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