Captains and Robbers

The other week in class we learned about the rise of American industry from the 1850's to the 1900's.  In order to learn about this we watched some videos on ABC CLIO, like we did with the Buffalo Soldiers unit.  We then analyzed some primary source documents to further help our understanding of American industry.  After we watched the videos and analyzed the docs, we had to create the essential question for the unit and we came up with; "Should Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller be classified as robber barons or captains of industry?"  Robber barons were seen as corrupt and cruel because they treated their workers horribly.  They also hired private armies to destroy their rivals if they couldn't buy them out.  Captains of industry were considered 'captains' because they were respected, and were leaders of the uninterrupted time period where industry grew rapidly.  After all of this we created 40 questions together that we will use on our History final on June 22nd.

Andrew Carnegie

 Andrew Carnegie was known for the steel production and he learned better ways of steel production by studying in the Bessemer steel production process.  Using this knowledge and more, the U.S.'s steel production surpassed Britain's, with a lot of thanks to Carnegie.  Carnegie used Vertical Integration which gave him complete control of raw materials, transportation, production and all sales.  Andrew Carnegie also adopted the belief of "Gospel of Wealth".  The Gospel of Wealth is the moral obligation to use the wealth that god gave you to help the public, and one way Carnegie did this was by building many schools and libraries.  He built the Carnegie-Mellon University along with the Tuskegee Institution.  Using the definition of robber baron and captain of industry I believe that Andrew Carnegie was a captain of industry because he had good intentions, even though most of the newspapers and public thought differently.  The fact that he believed strongly in the Gospel of Wealth, and the hundreds of libraries he opened makes me say that Carnegie should be classified as a captain of industry.

John D Rockefeller

John D Rockefeller had a very similar life to Andrew Carnegie as he was one of the founders of the Standard Oil company.  After the Civil War ended, he began to buy partners and put all of his money into the company. Shortly after there was a drop in oil prices and Rockefeller took this opportunity to start buying up companies who weren't doing very well.  Although when faced with bigger competitors, he would lower his oil prices so much that the competitors couldn't compete with them.  He would then buy up those companies after they started doing poorly.  He was crazy about oil and always did things to try and be the best company, by keeping production costs really low, and also bribing politicians.  Even though he bribed politicians it didn't make him a bad man, it was simply business.  He used a different practice than Andrew Carnegie used, he used horizontal integration.  This meant that he controlled his oil company, and when he couldn't take over his competitors he worked with them and sort of controlled the prices of that company.  Overall, like Carnegie, Rockefeller didn't have bad or evil intentions and I would classify him as a captain of industry.  He was a great business man and managed to make a big, successful company, but he wasn't cruel and didn't mistreat his workers.