Andrew Carnegie is known world wide as a great Scottish American and Philanthropist giving away billions in today’s money values to help the working class in particular their education and promoting world peace.
However many people believe he was also a person who planned the murder of strikers in his factories in order to bring about his own riches.
Born and brought up in Dunfermline Scotland Andrew Carnegie‘s father and uncle were being constantly attacked for their radical political attitudes and actions. As leaders in the Chartist movement they were fighting for the right of the working class to vote and stand for election in the belief that this would bring about a fairer future for the world. At this time only the richer people were allowed to do these things. Only property owners were able to have their name on the electoral register to vote so only they would be able to represent the people and of course were able to maintain power and influence.
The actions of Andrew Carnegies father and uncle led to the family losing their jobs and the rich factory owners seeing as potential troublemakers ensured they never worked again.
Andrew Carnegie was caught up in the struggles and found himself moving to Pittsburgh USA still aged only 13. All their possessions were sold and using extra money borrowed from friends and neighbours they managed to get a ship across the Atlantic to start a new life.
Andrew took a job as a bobbin boy in a weaving factory but later moved to become a telegraph boy where he caught the eye of his employer who promoted him to personal secretary. In this position he was able to acquire an inside knowledge of how business worked and with hard work and very shrewd investments was able to start his own steel works. This grew to become one of the countries largest and when he later sold it he was able to pocket over 350 million dollars.
Carnegie cut wages and pushed workers for longer hours along with investing in new technology to enable him to win enough contracts to buy up less efficient steel works. He continually ran into conflict after conflict with the new unions.
Andrew Carnegie appointed Frick, a man with a clear reputation for hard fighting with unions, as general manager of his steel works and hired Pinkerton’s Detective Agency to assist fight union problems during strikes. Pinkerton’s were at that time known as a violent group of men each armed with Winchester rifles to defend their employers interests but were also known for attacking strikers and on one occasion bombed the area headquarters of a Chicago union.
Andrew Carnegie at this time went back to Scotland for half a year at a time so he was present during the Homestead Steel Works dispute but we have come across cables sent between him and Frick the General Manager where he clearly supported “doing whatever was necessary to win the fight”. 10 men died on this occasion during a long gun battle but it led to the union collapse and a return to work. Andrew Carnegie immediately cut the wages again introduced a longer working week and ensured 500 men who were involved in the strike leadership would never again work in the steel mill.
Blacklisted from employment after being branded a troublemaker by rich factory owners rings bells with how Carnegies own family was punished so he obviously learnt some lessons, didn’t he? You can read the full story on http://scottishjerk.com/09/andrew-carnegie-murderer/ and vote in our poll at the same time.
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