Andrew Carnegie: A Hero Or Hero?

A hero is a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities. These heros put their best selves forward in service to help humanity. Heros take action on behalf of others that are in need. Andrew Carnegie was in fact was a hero. This subject can be controversial because of the fact that Carnegie gave away money after he died, and not while he was alive. Carnegie started off in a very poor family and eventually became very wealthy. This shows the world that anyone can be rich, even if they were born into a poor family. Andrew Carnegie reached a high level of success in money and power and is considered a hero because he showed the qualities of a hero like being caring and generous by donating his money
to charities and around his community. Something that Andrew Carnegie believed in greatly was the idea of social darwinism.
This concept of social darwinism said that if you were born and raised poor, you would stay poor forever and would never be able to become rich. The first Document, Document B shows how society was separated in 1800s. It says that the poor people had it worse. In this document he comes across as arguing that he is rich and that it was better and he was better than everyone else. Carnegie is basically saying that social darwinism is a good thing. The second document, Document M, shows the 3 ways of what a man can do with his money when he dies. The first option of what you can do with your money is to leave it for your family. Carnegie thought that this option was the worst of them all. He believed that if you left your money for your children, then they would not know the value of it. He wanted them to work for their money and understand the hard work it takes. The second option was to leave your money for charity. This was also not the best option. Carnegie said that if you leave all your money for charity, you are basically saying that I should take my money with me, but if I can’t take it with me, I might as well just leave it. This is a nice gesture, but not really at the same time. The person could have been donating to charity while they were alive, rather than giving it becuase they have no use for it when they are dead. The best option that Carnegie believed in was to give your
money to your community. Carnegie believed in helping people when they need it because they cannot help themselves. This brings it back to the idea of Social Darwinism. Carnegie wanted to help people because they were incapable of helping themselves and rich men were better at administering money. Both Documents B and M are very good examples of ways that social darwinism was used in the late 1800s. The idea of social darwinism shows the reader, that Carnegie did care a little bit about the poor people because he tried to help his community become better and donated money to it. The next examples that show that Carnegie is a hero are Documents G, D and I. These documents show that Andrew Carnegie was helping the poor and making things a little bit easier for them so they could earn more money.The first document, Document G shows a map of the selected properties that Carnegie owned. In this image, it shows that Carnegie owned 5 different properties. He owned Carnegie’s Oliver Iron Mining Co which controlled nearly all of the Messabi iron ore fields. This Mining company was the largest of its kind in the whole world. He also owned the Pittsburgh Steamship Company not far from his mining company where he owned 6 ore boats that he used to transfer iron through the Great Lakes directly to the mills in Pittsburgh. Along this route Carnegie owned multiple steel companies as well. These Steel Companies included several mills in and around Pittsburgh, and were all connected by the union Railroad Company also owned and operated by Andrew Carnegie. All these companies that Carnegie owned helped people to be able to receive the resources people needed like steel and iron. This shows that he was a hero because he helped people get what they needed easily. The next Document which is D is a graph of Production Costs and selling prices for One ton of Steel Rails in 1903. The graph shows both the prices of the production costs and the selling price at the mill. The graph shows that in 1875, the selling price was about $10 more than the production costs. As the years passed the production costs started to get lower and the and the selling costs started to become almost as much as the production costs. In November of 1877, the difference between the Production costs and selling prices was about $1. This is showing that Carnegie was becoming richer and richer so he did not need the money so he decided to help out the poor people so they were able to afford steel. This shows that Carnegie was in fact a hero because of the fact that he was trying to help everyone, and not just the wealthy. The last document that showed Carnegie assisting the poor is Document I. This document is a chart of the average daily hours and average daily wages in US Manufacturing in 1892. It shows that the people working for Carnegie in the iron and steel industry were getting one of the highest wages. This chart is showing that Carnegie was pretty generous in the way that he was paying his workers. Overall, Carnegie most definitely was a hero because his workers earned more money than they need in order to support a typical 6 member family and he helped poor people live easier. Andrew Carnegie was also a hero because of his generosity and kindness.
Documents N and O show Carnegie helping the poor and donating to his community and other places. Document N is a part of Carnegie’s Philanthropy. This chart was created by Joseph Frazier Wall in 1970. This chart is showing how generous Carnegie was by giving away $350,685,653 to Princeton University, TIAA, Dunfermline Trust, Homestead Relief Fund, Church organs, Carnegie Peace Endowment, Universities of Scotland, Teacher’s Pension fund, Carnegie Institution, Free Public libraries, Carnegie Corporation and much more. The Carnegie Corporation’s net assets in 2005 were listed as $2,167,000,000. The foundation is currently giving out about $100,000,000 a year with most of it used for education. The next document, Document O is a political Cartoon from The Saturday Globe in 1892. This cartoon is showing Carnegie lowering the wages that he gave to his employees by 2%. Lowering these wages would help Carnegie donate more money to his community. This shows that Carnegie was a hero because he gave and is still giving his money to people who need it. Carnegie knew that he would not live forever and he had no use for his money after he died, so he decided to use it before he died on things that were important to him. In Conclusion, Carnegie most definitely earns the title of hero. He deserves this title because of his kindness, generosity and willingness to give. Even though Carnegie believed in Social Darwinism,
he still had a good heart and liked to help to make his community better. These traits show that he is a hero and should be an example for others. Heros should be people who leave a mark on the world and Andrew Carnegie did just that.