Andrew Carnegie-Gustavo

 Gustavo Alvarez 

Mr. Roddy 

IHSS 

4/12/2022

    Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish born, American industrialist that was well known for his philanthropy and his success in many different industries. At a young age he moved from Scotland to the U.S where he worked as a boy in a Pittsburg Cotton factory and eventually moving up as a division superintendent for the Pennsylvania Railroad company at the age of 19. He then began to invest in various Oil and Iron companies were he began to gain a fortune by his early 30's. In the early 1870's he began his steel business where by the next two decades he was a dominant force in the industry. He later started to devote his wealth to philanthropy and began to speak for worker unionization. This however begun to turn to hypocrisy, as in July of 1982, while on vacation at his castle in Scotland one of the deadliest worker strikes had begun in one of his steel mills. After a contract of three years with one of the largest worker unions in the country had expired with the Carnegie steel plant in Homestead, the Chairman and Chief Executive, Henry Clay Flick, had begun to cut workers wages, a strike had commenced. After refusing to negotiate with the union, Flick locked the factory away from the workers which resulted in over 3,800 workers unable to work or access the factory. this was all done with Andrew Carnegie's approval. After seeing this all the workers voted to strike against the Carnegie steel industry. Flick, with the approval of Carnegie, decided to build a fence topped with barbed wire around the mill, making the workers dub it as "Fort Flick". Later flick decided to purchase hundreds of private security Pinkertons to break the union. Once the Pinkertons attempted to reach the town through the Monongahela River, the striking workers opened fire on the Pinkertons which resulted in a battle leaving 17 dead with the Pinkertons surrendering and being beat by the wives and children once they came onto shore. Flick seeing this, requested the governor for helped which was granted and 8,500 national guard troops were sent to quell the strike and put the town under martial law. The leaders of the union were all arrested and charged for murder and the union was disbanded. this also set back the unionization of all workers, with no major union being successful or made until the end of Word War One. This all happened while Carnegie was in his castle in Scotland completely ignoring the press while being labeled as a major hypocrite and union buster. 

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