Course Title: Business 501, Andrew Carnegie

Prerequisite: None

Credits:  4

Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland in 1835 and moved to America at the age of 13. Began his career in the Pennsylvania Railroad, entered the steel business at the bottom and in about 15 years hence was already very wealthy and powerful in the business community. He was a disciple of Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher best known as being the father of Social Darwinism.

Where as many of Carnegie's contemporaries, which is a hard thing to be considering his wealth was said to of been three times that of John D. Rockefeller, were disinclined to dabble into politics and social justice, Andrew felt at home these more cerebral pursuits. Indeed he wrote his own biography and the The Gospel of Wealth.

One of Carnegie's few defeats, and yet an ambitious gambit altogether, was his pursuit and commitment to world peace, to that end he had relationships with seven U.S. Presidents and many other worldly players of his time.

A spectacular achievement of Carnegie was his funding of libraries and museums across the country, including prestigious Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. True to his tenant put forth in The Gospel of Wealth, libraries were seeded only in the event that communities promised to keep the maintenance, upkeep, and stocking of the buildings. Applicants for libraries had also to keep to strict architectural guidelines so as to not squander the grant money on superficial buildings designs.

In the history of the United States, very few, if any, business leader or politicians have matched the grand achievements of Andrew Carnegie. Some, like A. J. Palumbo and Bill Gates have generously followed in the footsteps of the wealthy steel magnate, but it will be some time before they can equal his philanthropic bequests. A study of his life and accomplishments will surely inspire RSU business students to a higher life calling than just the mere chasing of an extra dollar of wealth.

The Gospel of Wealth was written around the turn of the 1900's by Andrew Carnegie. It is noted that John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates are amongst the wealthy who have read this personal manifesto by the great philanthropist and have been moved by it. The message of the book is to give back to society the wealth that is earned in a lifetime, not to leave it to heirs who, by Carnegie's observations, will squander it.

In other words, this book has become the gospel of philanthropy, the onus inducing testament to the ages of what giving back meant to Andrew Carnegie, the words he left to inspire the similarly enriched. This book has a powerful message of charity, but given in controlled environment where the benefits are more assured. Mr. Carnegie felt very strongly about the idea of using the accumulated wealth wisely to better society, so much so that he had certain architectural and maintenance standards for communities to meet in order to obtain grant money set aside from his personal wealth for libraries and museums across the country. In the end, realizing his wealth would not be depleted prior to his death, he set up the Carnegie Foundation to oversee his estate's wealth and distribute it.

In the 2002 release of Carnegie by Peter Krass, the RSU student is treated to the first biography of America's preeminent pioneering businessman and philanthropist in 30 years. The book was largely a work from primary sources like diary accounts and anecdotes from personal friends of Andrew Carnegie. This is a book packed full of information, so much so that it does crowd out some of the more personal interactions and explorations between Carnegie and his relations.

What this book is about is the life of a great businessman who ruled his empire mercilessly and yet, began to give it all away. In addition to his generous gift giving to communities around the world, he also invested a lot of capital in a peace movement prior to World War One that failed and crushed the spirits of a man who counseled Presidents over decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The author, Peter Krass is a noted business writer who admittedly endeavored to tell the tale of Andrew Carnegie with a forethought to his own grandfather who had worked in a Carnegie steel mill in Pittsburgh. The treatment of his grandfather was not kind, as was typical in those days of high tension union/business relations, and the resultant prejudice does surface in some parts of the story. However, in the end his novel is a compelling read and is a grand accomplishment in telling the story how one lowly Scottish immigrant rose to be one of the greatest tycoon's of all time, one of the most ruthless and one of the most charitable as well.

Andrew Carnegie by Joseph Frazier Wall is a tomb of size almost equal to that of Carnegie's wealth, over 1100 pages! Captured within these voluminous pages is a story of not only Andrew Carnegie, but also that of the gilded age, seven presidents, and contemporaries who are legendary influencers of society to this very day.

This book has acquired a reputation as the best biography of Andrew Carnegie and it has also been recognized as a fairly balanced book, written in an manner that, although slow to start, builds up an amazing story which is hard to put down. Some have said that no words were wasted in this endeavor because of the information packed between the covers.