Andrew Carnegie

Name: Huu Thi Ha Thu

Class: IBM.ABP.K50

TERM PAPER FOR AMERICAN HISTORY

Topic: Discuss how Andrew Carnegie represented the rise of big businessmen during the

Gilded Age ?

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In American history, the period after the Civil War from the late 1860s to 1896 was called the Gilded Age. According to many historians, it was a time of enormous industrial, urban and agricultural growth. In this time, there were a lot of people, especially European workers going to United States. The Gilded Age was also known as the period of economic growth. From that, the U.S became the leader in industrialization. Some new economic fields appeared in heavy industry such as: Factory, Railroad, Coal mining and Steel. The Gilded Age was marked by the accumulation of great wealth in the midst of overwhelming poverty.

The term “big business” was used to describe the expansion in heavy industry, especially steel and oil in the period following the Civil War. During this time, the movement of the production of goods out of small shops and mills and into factories increased tremendously with the growth of the number of workers and employees. Big business also meant the annexation of many small companies into big, wealthy company with strong control and led to new forms of business organization and management.

During the Gilded Age, the famous person who presented the rise of “big business” was Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). He was a Scottish-American industrialist who made the American steel industry grow faster and faster because he created most of the progress and advances in steel production for the US. When he was 12-year-old, he came to the US from Ireland and worked as a cotton-boy in a cotton factory. Then, Andrew Carnegie became a telegraph worker and a railroad employee in Pennsylvania. However, before he was 30 years old, he had had some wise investments. Foreseeing the bright future of demand in iron and steel, Carnegie came...