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Andrew Carnegie can be looked at as a double edged sword. One edge of the blade would show Carnegie as an ideal example of a poor immigrant fighting his way up to become an incredibly successful business man who would one day give nearly all his fortune away to help society improve itself. The reverse edge of the blade would show Carnegie as a ruthless business man who would slash his workers pay, drive other businesses under and used corruption to become leader of the capitalist world. These viewpoints of Carnegie have changed as years pass. Early accounts of Carnegie depict him as the ruthless conqueror of the steel industry while other later works tend to show both sides of Carnegie with great emphasis on the fact that he was a great philanthropist who would donate millions to libraries and colleges in order for people to improve their education and lives on their own. Carnegie did not believe in just giving people money, that does not improve them or show work ethic. Carnegie believes in social Darwinism and wants people to fight for themselves and their own success just as he had to. Carnegie was born into a poor working class family in Scotland. The massive changes occurring during the Industrial Revolution proved to be difficult on Carnegie’s father. The rapid changes from the need for craftsmen to industrialism caused his father to lose his weaving business. The Carnegie family was opposed to the idea of a privileged class, who gained their wealth simply by inheritance. This type of upbringing played a large factor in Andrew Carnegie’s future. Probably because of the hardships he watched his father go through; Carnegie would reject the idea of living in a life of poverty and instead did everything in his power to ens... ... middle of paper ... ...tobiography of Andrew Carnegie ; and, The gospel of wealth. Ney York: Indy publish Company, 1996. McCloskey, Robert Green. American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1951. Morris, Charles R. The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J.P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005. Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Group, 2006. Standiford, Les. Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership that Transformed America. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2005. The Richest Man in the World: Andrew Carnegie. Directed by Austin Hoyt. Performed by Narr. David Ogden Stiers. 1997. Werth, Barry. Banquet at Delmonico's : great minds, the Gilded Age, and the triumph of evolution in America. New York: Random House, 2009.
Even though these men attempted to build a stable foundation for America to grow on, their negative aspects dramatically outweighed the positive. Even though Andrew Carnegie donated his fortunes to charity, he only acquired the money through unjustifiable actions. As these industrialists continued to monopolize companies through illegal actions, plutocracy- government controlled by the wealthy, took control of the Constitution. Sequentially, they used their power to prevent controls by state legislatures. These circumstances effect the way one
Carnegie was the classic rags to riches story, the penniless immigrant who made it big in the land of opportunity. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and migrated to America in 1848 at the age of 13. His first job was in a cotton mill, earning a measly $1.20 each week. Carnegie was ambitious and determined though and by the next year had gotten a job in a Pittsburg telegraph office. It was here he got his foot in the door to the business of Pittsburg. This allowed him to begin a job at the Pennsylvania Railroad as a secretary to the railroad official, Thomas Scott. By making wise choices, taking contro...
The rags-to-riches story is always a classical and inspirational tale that tries to touch our hearts. These stories seeks to arouse the warm, intrinsic emotions that all humans get when they proudly achieve a long-term goal. Andrew Carnegie’s life is the exception. Andrew Carnegie was an industrialist who guided the expansion of the American steel industry in the 1800s. During this period, the United States was a demanding country for steel to use in the rail roads. Andrew Carnegie was not a hero but a heartless capitalist because he sabotaged his competitors in the steel industry, applied his belief that “(competition) insures the survival of the fittest in every department” into social standards, and, maintained his employees in unfair working
Carnegie’s essay contains explanations of three common methods by which wealth is distributed and his own opinions on the effects of each. After reading the entire essay, readers can see his overall appeals to logos; having wealth does not make anyone rich, but using that wealth for the greater good does. He does not force his opinions onto the reader, but is effectively convincing of why his beliefs make sense. Andrew Carnegie’s simple explanations intertwined with small, but powerful appeals to ethos and pathos become incorporated into his overall appeal to logos in his definition of what it means for one to truly be rich.
The biography begins when the impoverished Carnegie family leaves their home in Scotland having been replaced by machines in the Industrial Revolution. People started sailing to America because their “old home no longer promised anything at all” (Livesay 14). They end up earning twice as much as they did in Scotland with their son Tom in school, the parents Margaret and Will shoe-binding, and Andrew working as a bobbin boy. Money earned without work was an opening to corruption in the eyes of a Republican nation and it was also assumed that hereditary wealth had caused the decline of Europe (Lena). Carnegie soon rises from poor bobbin boy to railroad superintendent, all the way to manager at the Pennsylvania Railroad. "I have made millions since, Carnegie later claimed, but none of these gave me so much happiness as my first week's earnings. I was now a helper of the family, a bread winner” (16). The background exposition on his family became crucial to understanding Carnegie’s drive to succeed. Livesay also fluently demonstrates the various professional relationships Carnegie develops throughout his life and how they affect his career. When his first investment pays a profit of $10, Carnegie discovers a whole new world of earning money from the capital. In 1865, he establishes his own business enterprises and...
His book, The Gospel of Wealth, preaches that “the millionaire who properly recognizes his own position is merely a "trustee"; he holds his surplus wealth for the benefit of his fellows” ("Andrew Carnegie," Dictionary). Carnegie himself abided by these words, contributing to society in the ways that he believed would most benefit American citizens. At its peak, Carnegie’s net worth was $475 million, which is equivalent to about $310 billion in today’s dollars. However, around the time of his death, Carnegie had only $30 million left to his name, after he put his money towards building trusts, charities, schools, and primarily libraries (Zorn). This philanthropy diverged from the actions of any millionaires of the time. Though some, such as John D. Rockefeller, also took part in philanthropic work, none held such intense concern or addressed societal problems as directly as Carnegie. Instead of simply donating large sums of money to schools or foundations, established his famous trusts and foundations, such as the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, that to this day benefit students by earning them scholarships and increasing the quality of their education. He also specifically fought to improve African American education, funding
He started with nothing and was able to be very successful. By working hard, he was hired by a railroad company. He was smart and open up a factory to change iron to steel and sell it to every on the market. Carnegie want to be able to own everything to be able to charge less which makes him able to control most of the market. This makes him extremely wealthy and shows people that if they work hard, they can become wealthy. Andrew Carnegie then began to think about his wealth and what he should do with it. He comes to the decision that he should give back to people and use his money for good. Carnegie then writes a book called The Gospel of Wealth. The Gospel of Wealth stated that it is the wealthy’s job to give to the poor to help them survive. It was everyone’s responsibility to help the people that were in need. Individual wealth should be passed to the society or the state rather than their kids and the wealthy should administer it. The rich were the fittest people so it should be their duty to take care of the poor or less fit people.
Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1835. His father, Will, was a weaver and a follower of Chartism, a popular movement of the British working class that called for the masses to vote and to run for Parliament in order to help improve conditions for workers. The exposure to such political beliefs and his family's poverty made a lasting impression on young Andrew and played a significant role in his life after his family immigrated to the United States in 1848. Andrew Carnegie amassed wealth in the steel industry after immigrating from Scotland as a boy. He came from a poor family and had little formal education.
This statement is true, but the money that sustained the philanthropic ways of the Industrialists was obtained in a way exemplify the qualities of a Robber Baron. A list of Rockefeller's major donations added up to about $500,000,000. While this money went charities and hospitals, the money was made from unethical business practices and the undermining of employees. The Saturday Globe’s political cartoon of Carnegie shows him cutting wages and giving away libraries and money. Industrialists took money that went from their workers away to practice philanthropy. The money might have gone to great causes, but the way it was obtained is characteristic of Robber Barons. Andrew Carnegie's essay, “The Gospel of Wealth” he describes the role of the wealthy in the community. Carnegie class the millionaire a “trust for the poor” and states that the wealthy know how to best invest n the community. This role taken on by Carnegie and other wealthy Americans of the late 19th century is reminiscent of that of an oligarchy, where a small group has control of the community. The oligarchical position of the wealthy in Carnegie's essay is against the American values of freedom and individuality, and very discriminatory towards the
Growing up as a young boy in Scotland, Carnegie's family was not very wealthy. They immigrated to America where Carnegie went from working as a bobbin boy, making $1.20 per hour, to making millions of dollars later in his life. Carnegie did not become wealthy by unethical means, as a Robber Baron would. Instead he worked very hard and wise to get to where he was during that time. Andrew Carnegie came from "rags to riches" in his lifetime and it paid off.
At the same time that Carnegie was learning about the pains of poverty; his family including his father, grandfather, and uncle were ardent labor activists. Working to end the hierarchy of the past and empower working men. (PBS, 1999) These two experiences would influence both Carnegie’s career and his ideology for the rest of his life. At times at odds with each other, but occasionally, he was capable of walking a fine line of building his fortune and helping those around him to improve their lot.
Carnegie did not believe in spending his money on frivolous things, instead he gave most of his fortune back to special projects that helped the public, such as libraries, schools and recreation. Carnegie believes that industries have helped both the rich and the poor. He supports Social Darwinism. The talented and smart businessmen rose to the top. He acknowledges the large gap between the rich and the poor and offers a solution. In Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie, he states, “the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves” (25). He believes the rich should not spend money foolishly or pass it down to their sons, but they should put it back into society. They should provide supervised opportunities for the poor to improve themselves. The rich man should know “the best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise- free libraries, parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind” (Carnegie p. 28). Also, Carnegie does not agree they should turn to Communism to redistribute wealth. Individuals should have the right to their earnings. Corporations should be allowed to act as it please with little to no government
Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish-American steel tycoon and one of the wealthiest men of the nineteenth century, believes that social inequality results as an inexorable byproduct of progress. In his 1889 article entitled “Wealth,” Carnegie claims that it is “essential” for the advancement of the human race that social divisions between the rich and poor exist, which separate those “highest and best in literature and the arts” who embody the “refinements of civilization” from those who do not (105). According to Carnegie, this “great irregularity” is favored over the “universal squalor” that would ensue if class distinctions ceased to exist (105). Carnegie states that it is a “waste of time to criticize the inevitable,” believing that poverty is an inherent characteristic of society rather than the result of elitist oppression (105). Carnegie may conclude that the rich do not necessarily owe the poor anything, but he also believes that wealthy philanthropists such as he should donate their vast accumulations to charity while they are still alive. In Carnegie’s mind, contributions to supporting educational institutions and constructing landmarks serves to
The Gospel of Wealth is primarily about the dispersion of wealth and the responsibilities of those who have it. Carnegie thinks that inheritance is detrimental to society because it does not do any good for the inheritor or the community. Inheritance promotes laziness and the lack of a good work ethic does not teach the young sons of wealthy men to make money for themselves or help those in community they live in. Carnegie believes that charity is also bad and instead of handouts money should be given to those in a position to help the needy help themselves to be better citizens. It is the responsibility of the wealthy to use their surplus earnings to start foundations for open institutions that will benefit everyone. Men who only leave their money to the public after they are dead which makes it appear to say that if they could take the money with them they would. For this reason Carnegie is in support of Death taxes to encourage men to spend and use their money during their life. Carnegie says in his essay that a definite separation of the classes is productive for society and is very natural. If the classes were to become equal it would be a forced and change thus being revolution and not evolution...
Carnegie, Andrew. The Gospel of Wealth. 391st ed. Vol. 148. N.p.: North American Review, 1889. Print.