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Episode Analysis: The Men Who Built America

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The Men Who Built America
Episode: 2
This episode starts with Andrew Carnegie mourning over Tom Scott’s death. Scott was Carnegie’s boss and one of the most influential person he knew.. He believes that Rockefeller, his rivalry, is the cause of Scott’s death. Carnegie must build a bridge connecting the Mississippi River to allow trains to transport goods across to the West. Scott tells Carnegie to hire James Eads because he’s “cheap and a genius.” It flashes back to the future and we see Carnegie and Eads working together to find a solution to how to build the bridge. There seem to be many issues but Carnegie believes “nothing impossible.” As he’s walking through the streets he sees a blacksmith making a piece of steel. It then occurs to him that he can build the …show more content…

In the next few years their profit double and Frick is made the chairman of Carnegie’s company. This isn't enough for Frick, so to show of his wealth he creates a members only club, The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Near this is South Fork dam, and it breaks due to the poor structure. It killed a lot of people and they blame the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club because they made them lower the dam. They don't take the responsibility for it or even consider it their fault but Carnegie differs. He helps them by donating millions of dollars to rebuild Johnstown. With Rockefeller oil company growing, Carnegie tries to help a troublesome steel mill and make it the largest. One problem with this is that to make profit they would have to cut wages and labor. Carnegie turns to Frick to help resolve the problem while he goes to Scotland. With Frick in charge, workers are undermined and they start a strike. Frick takes it as a challenge and hires merchants to settle the dispute. This leds in nine dead and several injured. A group called, The Anarchist, inquire righteousness and try to assassinate Frick but fail and that's how the episode ends. Andrew Carnegie was

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Carnegie reduced the wages of working employees in his steel company (document D). But as a business man he needed to do the most conventional thing to win more money. The more money he won the more he gave to the poor. If working employees don’t get enough pay they are considered poor so the employees still benefit for pay and donated things from Carnegie. Plus people that were employees to Carnegie’s industry of steel at least had a job so they can survive longer.

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In Document H, when Hamlin Garland, a journalist, visited the Homestead steel mill, the journalist said that everywhere in the mill felt like the mouth of hell. Hamlin saw grimy men with sallow and lean faces everywhere and when Hamlin asked one of the workers how their job is, they replied that they work twelve hours a day and mostly receive between $1.40 and $2.25 a day and rarely $5/$10 a day. There was also a machine known as deathtrap that kills workers occasionally. With Carnegie being so rich, he could’ve paid his workers more. Additionally, in Document O, Andrew Carnegie reduces the worker's pay wage by 20% in order to donate more money for his own selfish needs.

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(Shmoop.com) This example clearly demonstrates how capitalism during this era was present in the novel, it reveals how the owners took control of their factories without the control of the government. Even more the novel’s tittle symbolizes the ambitious nature of capitalism; Packingtown is a crude image of a Darwinian jungle,

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This is also known as the Homestead Strike. Carnegie then hired Pinkerton thugs to attack the workers. In the same excerpt, the author says, “he hired Pinkerton thugs to intimidate strikers. Many were killed in the conflict, and it was an episode that would forever hurt Carnegie's reputation and haunt the man.” He uses unfair ways to have a successful business through low wages, and using wealth to his

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Andrew Carnegie was a “robber baron” as shown in the way he acted towards the people who helped him reach the top and the terrible working environment that he subjected his workers to. He did various things in an attempt at overshadowing the awful things he did and positively alter his public image. His mentor, Thomas Scott, taught him the skills he would use to become the undisputed king of steel. Costs were the most important aspect of any business and reducing those required cutting wages, demanding 13 hour days and utilizing spies as a way to thwart possible strikes. Many years after Carnegie had gone out on his own, Scott met with him thinking that the years they spent together and all he had taught him would unquestionably result in help in his time of trouble.

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Carnegie is not a hero because he took money, only gave to other wealthy recipients, and contributed largely to his own.     Andrew Carnegie took money away from deserving people. Carnegie cut the wages of his workers to donate money elsewhere. In document D, there are two images of Carnegie, one is giving a wage cut notice to the workers and the other is giving a check to Scotland and donating a library to Pittsburg. Carnegie’s employees were working hard and trying to survive in a tough economy, their wages did not deserve a cut.

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