John Pierpont Morgan biography - Commack Schools



John Pierpont Morgan biography

Synopsis

JOHN PIERPONT MORGAN WAS BORN APRIL 17, 1837, IN HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT. AFTER WORKING FOR HIS FATHER, HE STARTED HIS OWN PRIVATE BANKING COMPANY IN 1871, WHICH BECAME J. P. MORGAN & CO. HIS COMPANY WAS SO POWERFUL THAT EVEN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT LOOKED TO THE FIRM FOR HELP WITH THE DEPRESSION OF 1895. THE GOVERNMENT LATER FILED SUIT AGAINST THE COMPANY OVER CONCERNS ABOUT MONOPOLIES.

Profile

FINANCIER, ART COLLECTOR, AND PHILANTHROPIST. BORN ON APRIL 17, 1837, IN HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT. SON OF A BANKER, MORGAN WENT INTO THE FAMILY BUSINESS AND BECAME ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS FINANCIERS IN THE HISTORY OF BUSINESS. AFTER WORKING FOR HIS FATHER, HE STARTED HIS OWN PRIVATE BANKING COMPANY IN 1871, WHICH LATER BECAME KNOWN AS J. P. MORGAN & CO. HIS COMPANY BECAME ONE OF THE LEADING FINANCIAL FIRMS IN THE COUNTRY. IT WAS SO POWERFUL THAT EVEN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT LOOKED TO THE FIRM FOR HELP WITH THE DEPRESSION OF 1895. THE COMPANY ALSO ASSISTED IN THWARTING THE 1907 FINANCIAL CRISIS.

DURING HIS CAREER, HIS WEALTH, POWER, AND INFLUENCE ATTRACTED A LOT OF MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT SCRUTINY. DURING THE LATE 1800S AND EVEN AFTER THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, MUCH OF THE COUNTRY'S INDUSTRIES WERE IN THE HANDS OF A FEW POWERFUL BUSINESS LEADERS, ESPECIALLY MORGAN. HE WAS CRITICIZED FOR CREATING MONOPOLIES BY MAKING IT DIFFICULT FOR ANY BUSINESS TO COMPETE AGAINST HIS. MORGAN DOMINATED TWO INDUSTRIES IN PARTICULAR—HE HELPED CONSOLIDATE RAILROAD INDUSTRY IN THE EAST AND FORMED THE UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION IN 1901. A CRUCIAL MATERIAL IN THE EXTENSIVE GROWTH OF THE NATION, U.S. STEEL BECAME THE WORLD'S LARGEST STEEL MANUFACTURER. THE GOVERNMENT, CONCERNED ABOUT MORGAN HAD CREATED A MONOPOLY IN THE STEEL INDUSTRY, FILED SUIT AGAINST THE COMPANY IN 1911. THE FOLLOWING YEAR, MORGAN AND HIS PARTNERS BECAME THE SUBJECT OF A CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION BY THE PUJO COMMITTEE IN 1912.

MORGAN HAD MANY INTERESTS BEYOND THE WORLD OF BANKING. HE ENJOYED SAILING AND PARTICIPATED IN A NUMBER OF AMERICA'S CUP YACHT RACES. HE WAS AN ARDENT ART COLLECTOR, CREATING ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT COLLECTIONS OF HIS TIME. HE LATER DONATED HIS ART COLLECTION TO THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, AND HIS COLLECTION OF WRITTEN WORKS TO THE MORGAN LIBRARY—BOTH IN NEW YORK CITY.

MORGAN'S FIRST MARRIAGE TO AMELIA STURGES WAS BRIEF. SHE DIED A FEW MONTHS AFTER THEIR 1860 WEDDING. FIVE YEARS LATER, MORGAN MARRIED FRANCES TRACY. THE COUPLE HAD FOUR CHILDREN: JOHN PIERPONT, JR., LOUISA, JULIET, AND ANNE.

MORGAN DIED ON MARCH 31, 1913, IN ROME, ITALY. AT THE TIME OF HIS DEATH, HE WAS HAILED AS A MASTER OF FINANCE AND CONSIDERED ONE OF THE COUNTRY'S LEADING BUSINESSMEN.

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Henry Ford biography

Synopsis

BORN IN 1863, HENRY FORD WAS A PROMINENT AMERICAN INDUSTRIALIST, THE FOUNDER OF THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY, AND SPONSOR OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ASSEMBLY LINE TECHNIQUE OF MASS PRODUCTION. HIS INTRODUCTION OF THE MODEL T AUTOMOBILE REVOLUTIONIZED TRANSPORTATION AND AMERICAN INDUSTRY. AS OWNER OF THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY, HE BECAME ONE OF THE RICHEST AND BEST-KNOWN PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.

(born July 30, 1863, Wayne county, Mich., U.S.—died April 7, 1947, Dearborn, Mich.) American industrialist who revolutionized factory production with his assembly-line methods.

Early life

FORD SPENT MOST OF HIS LIFE MAKING HEADLINES, GOOD, BAD, BUT NEVER INDIFFERENT. CELEBRATED AS BOTH A TECHNOLOGICAL GENIUS AND A FOLK HERO, FORD WAS THE CREATIVE FORCE BEHIND AN INDUSTRY OF UNPRECEDENTED SIZE AND WEALTH THAT IN ONLY A FEW DECADES PERMANENTLY CHANGED THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHARACTER OF THE UNITED STATES. WHEN YOUNG FORD LEFT HIS FATHER'S FARM IN 1879 FOR DETROIT, ONLY TWO OUT OF EIGHT AMERICANS LIVED IN CITIES; WHEN HE DIED AT AGE 83, THE PROPORTION WAS FIVE OUT OF EIGHT. ONCE FORD REALIZED THE TREMENDOUS PART HE AND HIS MODEL T AUTOMOBILE HAD PLAYED IN BRINGING ABOUT THIS CHANGE, HE WANTED NOTHING MORE THAN TO REVERSE IT, OR AT LEAST TO RECAPTURE THE RURAL VALUES OF HIS BOYHOOD. HENRY FORD, THEN, IS AN APT SYMBOL OF THE TRANSITION FROM AN AGRICULTURAL TO AN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA.

Henry Ford was one of eight children of William and Mary Ford. He was born on the family farm near Dearborn, Michigan, then a town eight miles west of Detroit. Abraham Lincoln was president of the 24 states of the Union, and Jefferson Davis was president of the 11 states of the Confederacy. Ford attended a one-room school for eight years when he was not helping his father with the harvest. At age 16 he walked to Detroit to find work in its machine shops. After three years, during which he came in contact with the internal-combustion engine for the first time, he returned to the farm, where he worked part-time for the Westinghouse Engine Company and in spare moments tinkered in a little machine shop he set up. Eventually he built a small “farm locomotive,” a tractor that used an old mowing machine for its chassis and a homemade steam engine for power.

Ford moved back to Detroit nine years later as a married man. His wife, Clara Bryant, had grown up on a farm not far from Ford's. They were married in 1888, and on November 6, 1893, she gave birth to their only child, Edsel Bryant. A month later Ford was made chief engineer at the main Detroit Edison Company plant with responsibility for maintaining electric service in the city 24 hours a day. Because he was on call at all times, he had no regular hours and could experiment to his heart's content. He had determined several years before to build a gasoline-powered vehicle, and his first working gasoline engine was completed at the end of 1893. By 1896 he had completed his first horseless carriage, the “Quadricycle,” so called because the chassis of the four-horsepower vehicle was a buggy frame mounted on four bicycle wheels. Unlike many other automotive inventors, including Charles Edgar and J. Frank Duryea, Elwood Haynes, Hiram Percy Maxim, and his Detroit acquaintance Charles Brady King, all of whom had built self-powered vehicles before Ford but who held onto their creations, Ford sold his to finance work on a second vehicle, and

a third, and so on.

During the next seven years he had various backers, some of whom, in 1899, formed the Detroit Automobile Company (later the Henry Ford Company), but all eventually abandoned him in exasperation because they wanted a passenger car to put on the market while Ford insisted always on improving whatever model he was working on, saying that it was not ready yet for customers. He built several racing cars during these years, including the “999” racer driven by Barney Oldfield, and set several new speed records. In 1902 he left the Henry Ford Company, which subsequently reorganized as the Cadillac Motor Car Company. Finally, in 1903, Ford was ready to market an automobile. The Ford Motor Company was incorporated, this time with a mere $28,000 in cash put up by ordinary citizens, for Ford had, in his previous dealings with backers, antagonized the wealthiest men in Detroit.

The company was a success from the beginning, but just five weeks after its incorporation the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers threatened to put it out of business because Ford was not a licensed manufacturer. He had been denied a license by this group, which aimed at reserving for its members the profits of what was fast becoming a major industry. The basis of their power was control of a patent granted in 1895 to George Baldwin Selden, a patent lawyer of Rochester, New York. The association claimed that the patent applied to all gasoline-powered automobiles. Along with many rural Midwesterners of his generation, Ford hated industrial combinations and Eastern financial power. Moreover, Ford thought the Selden patent preposterous. All invention was a matter of evolution, he said, yet Selden claimed genesis. He was glad to fight, even though the fight pitted the puny Ford Motor Company against an industry worth millions of dollars. The gathering of evidence and actual court hearings took six years. Ford lost the original case in 1909; he appealed and won in 1911. His victory had wide implications for the industry, and the fight made Ford a popular hero.

“I will build a motor car for the great multitude,” Ford proclaimed in announcing the birth of the Model T in October 1908. In the 19 years of the Model T's existence, he sold 15,500,000 of the cars in the United States, almost 1,000,000 more in Canada, and 250,000 in Great Britain, a production total amounting to half the auto output of the world. The motor age arrived owing mostly to Ford's vision of the car as the ordinary man's utility rather than as the rich man's luxury. Once only the rich had travelled freely around the country; now millions could go wherever they pleased. The Model T was the chief instrument of one of the greatest and most rapid changes in the lives of the common people in history, and it effected this change in less than two decades. Farmers were no longer isolated on remote farms. The horse disappeared so rapidly that the transfer of acreage from hay to other crops caused an

agricultural revolution. The automobile became the main prop of the American economy and a stimulant to urbanization—cities spread outward, creating suburbs and housing developments—and to the building of the finest highway system in the world.

The remarkable birth rate of Model T's was made possible by the most advanced production technology yet conceived. After much experimentation by Ford and his engineers, the system that had evolved by 1913–14 in Ford's new plant in Highland Park, Michigan, was able to deliver parts, subassemblies, and assemblies (themselves built on subsidiary assembly lines) with precise timing to a constantly moving main assembly line, where a complete chassis was turned out every 93 minutes, an enormous improvement over the 728 minutes formerly required. The minute subdivision of labour and the coordination of a multitude of operations produced huge gains in productivity.

In 1914 the Ford Motor Company announced that it would henceforth pay eligible workers a minimum wage of $5 a day (compared to an average of $2.34 for the industry) and would reduce the work day from nine hours to eight, thereby converting the factory to a three-shift day. Overnight Ford became a worldwide celebrity. People either praised him as a great humanitarian or excoriated him as a mad socialist. Ford said humanitarianism had nothing to do with it. Previously profit had been based on paying wages as low as workers would take and pricing cars as high as the traffic would bear. Ford, on the other hand, stressed low pricing (the Model T cost $950 in 1908 and $290 in 1927) in order to capture the widest possible market and then met the price by volume and efficiency. Ford's success in making the automobile a basic necessity turned out to be but a prelude to a more widespread revolution. The development of mass-production techniques, which enabled the company eventually to turn out a Model T every 24 seconds; the frequent reductions in the price of the car made possible by economies of scale; and the payment of a living wage that raised workers above subsistence and made them potential customers for, among other things, automobiles—these innovations changed the very structure of society.

Control of the company

DURING ITS FIRST FIVE YEARS THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY PRODUCED EIGHT DIFFERENT MODELS, AND BY 1908 ITS OUTPUT WAS 100 CARS A DAY. THE STOCKHOLDERS WERE ECSTATIC; FORD WAS DISSATISFIED AND LOOKED TOWARD TURNING OUT 1,000 A DAY. THE STOCKHOLDERS SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED COURT ACTION TO STOP HIM FROM USING PROFITS TO EXPAND. IN 1909 FORD, WHO OWNED 58 PERCENT OF THE STOCK, ANNOUNCED THAT HE WAS ONLY GOING TO MAKE ONE CAR IN THE FUTURE, THE MODEL T. THE ONLY THING THE MINORITY STOCKHOLDERS COULD DO TO PROTECT THEIR DIVIDENDS FROM HIS ALL-CONSUMING IMAGINATION WAS TO TAKE HIM TO COURT, WHICH HORACE AND JOHN DODGE DID IN 1916.

The Dodge brothers, who formerly had supplied chassis to Ford but were now manufacturing their own car while still holding Ford stock,

sued Ford for what they claimed was his reckless expansion and for reducing prices of the company's product, thereby diverting money from stockholders' dividends. The court hearings gave Ford a chance to expound his ideas about business. In December 1917 the court ruled in favour of the Dodges; Ford, as in the Selden case, appealed, but this time he lost. In 1919 the court said that, while Ford's sentiments about his employees and customers were nice, a business is for the profit of its stockholders. Ford, irate that a court and a few shareholders, whom he likened to parasites, could interfere with the management of his company, determined to buy out all the shareholders. He had resigned as president in December 1918 in favour of his son, Edsel, and in March 1919 he announced a plan to organize a new company to build cars cheaper than the Model T. When asked what would become of the Ford Motor Company, he said, “Why I don't know exactly what will become of that; the portion of it that does not belong to me cannot be sold to me, that I know.” The Dodges, somewhat inconsistently, having just taken him to court for mismanagement, vowed that he would not be allowed to leave. Ford said that if he was not master of his own company, he would start another. The ruse worked; by July 1919 Ford had bought out all seven minority stockholders. (The seven had little to complain about: in addition to being paid nearly $106,000,000 for their stock, they received a court-ordered dividend of $19,275,385 plus $1,536,749 in interest.) Ford Motor Company was reorganized under a Delaware charter in 1920 with all shares held by Ford and other family members. Never had one man controlled so completely a business enterprise so gigantic.

The planning of a huge new plant at River Rouge, Michigan, had been one of the specific causes of the Dodge suit. What Ford dreamed of was not merely increased capacity but complete self-sufficiency. World War I, with its shortages and price increases, demonstrated for him the need to control raw materials; slow-moving suppliers convinced him that he should make his own parts. Wheels, tires, upholstery, and various accessories were purchased from other companies around Detroit. As Ford production increased, these smaller operations had to speed their output; most of them had to install their own assembly lines. It became impossible to coordinate production and shipment so that each product would arrive at the right place and at the right time. At first he tried accumulating large inventories to prevent delays or stoppages of the assembly line, but he soon realized that stockpiling wasted capital. Instead he took up the idea of extending movement to inventories as well as to production. He perceived that his costs in manufacturing began the moment the raw material was separated from the earth and continued until the finished product was delivered to the consumer. The plant he built in River Rouge embodied his idea of an integrated operation

encompassing production, assembly, and transportation. To complete the vertical integration of his empire, he purchased a railroad, acquired control of 16 coal mines and about 700,000 (285,000 hectares) acres of timberland, built a sawmill, acquired a fleet of Great Lakes freighters to bring ore from his Lake Superior mines, and even bought a glassworks.

The move from Highland Park to the completed River Rouge plant was accomplished in 1927. At 8 o'clock any morning, just enough ore for the day would arrive on a Ford freighter from Ford mines in Michigan and Minnesota and would be transferred by conveyor to the blast furnaces and transformed into steel with heat supplied by coal from Ford mines in Kentucky. It would continue on through the foundry molds and stamping mills and exactly 28 hours after arrival as ore would emerge as a finished automobile. Similar systems handled lumber for floorboards, rubber for tires, and so on. At the height of its success the company's holdings stretched from the iron mines of northern Michigan to the jungles of Brazil, and it operated in 33 countries around the globe. Most remarkably, not one cent had been borrowed to pay for any of it. It was all built out of profits from the Model T.

Later years

THE UNPRECEDENTED SCALE OF THAT SUCCESS, TOGETHER WITH FORD'S PERSONAL SUCCESS IN GAINING ABSOLUTE CONTROL OF THE FIRM AND DRIVING OUT SUBORDINATES WITH CONTRARY OPINIONS, SET THE STAGE FOR DECLINE. TRUSTING IN WHAT HE BELIEVED WAS AN UNERRING INSTINCT FOR THE MARKET, FORD REFUSED TO FOLLOW OTHER AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS IN OFFERING SUCH INNOVATIVE FEATURES AS CONVENTIONAL GEARSHIFTS (HE HELD OUT FOR HIS OWN PLANETARY GEAR TRANSMISSION), HYDRAULIC BRAKES (RATHER THAN MECHANICAL ONES), SIX- AND EIGHT-CYLINDER ENGINES (THE MODEL T HAD A FOUR), AND CHOICE OF COLOUR (FROM 1914 EVERY MODEL T WAS PAINTED BLACK). WHEN HE WAS FINALLY CONVINCED THAT THE MARKETPLACE HAD CHANGED AND WAS DEMANDING MORE THAN A PURELY UTILITARIAN VEHICLE, HE SHUT DOWN HIS PLANTS FOR FIVE MONTHS TO RETOOL. IN DECEMBER 1927 HE INTRODUCED THE MODEL A. THE NEW MODEL ENJOYED SOLID BUT NOT SPECTACULAR SUCCESS. FORD'S STUBBORNNESS HAD COST HIM HIS LEADERSHIP POSITION IN THE INDUSTRY; THE MODEL A WAS OUTSOLD BY GENERAL MOTORS' CHEVROLET AND CHRYSLER'S PLYMOUTH AND WAS DISCONTINUED IN 1931. DESPITE THE INTRODUCTION OF THE FORD V-8 IN 1932, BY 1936 FORD MOTOR COMPANY WAS THIRD IN SALES IN THE INDUSTRY.

A similar pattern of authoritarian control and stubbornness marked Ford's attitude toward his workers. The $5 day that brought him so much attention in 1914 carried with it, for workers, the price of often overbearing paternalism. It was, moreover, no guarantee for the future; in 1929 Ford instituted a $7 day, but in 1932, as part of the fiscal stringency imposed by falling sales and the Great Depression, that was cut to $4, below prevailing industry wages. Ford freely employed company police, labour spies, and violence in a protracted effort to prevent unionization

and continued to do so even after General Motors and Chrysler had come to terms with the United Automobile Workers. When the UAW finally succeeded in organizing Ford workers in 1941, he considered shutting down before he was persuaded to sign a union contract.

During the 1920s, under Edsel Ford's nominal presidency, the company diversified by acquiring the Lincoln Motor Car Company, in 1922, and venturing into aviation. At Edsel's death in 1943 Henry Ford resumed the presidency and, in spite of age and infirmity, held it until 1945, when he retired in favour of his grandson, Henry Ford II.

Henry Ford was a complex personality. Away from the shop floor he exhibited a variety of enthusiasms and prejudices and, from time to time, startling ignorance. His dictum that “history is more or less bunk” was widely publicized, as was his deficiency in that field revealed during cross-examination in his million-dollar libel suit against the Chicago Tribune in 1919; a Tribune editorial had called him an “ignorant idealist” because of his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I, and while the jury found for Ford it awarded him only six cents. One of Ford's most publicized acts was his chartering of an ocean liner to conduct himself and a party of pacifists to Europe in November 1915 in an attempt to end the war by means of “continuous mediation.” The so-called Peace Ship episode was widely ridiculed. In 1918, with the support of Pres. Woodrow Wilson, Ford ran for a U.S. Senate seat from Michigan. He was narrowly defeated after a campaign of personal attacks by his opponent.

In 1918 Ford bought a newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, and in it published a series of scurrilous attacks on the “International Jew,” a mythical figure he blamed for financing war; in 1927 he formally retracted his attacks and sold the paper. He gave old-fashioned dances at which capitalists, European royalty, and company executives were introduced to the polka, the Sir Roger de Coverley, the mazurka, the Virginia reel, and the quadrille; he established small village factories; he built one-room schools in which vocational training was emphasized; he experimented with soybeans for food and durable goods; he sponsored a weekly radio hour on which quaint essays were read to “plain folks”; he constructed Greenfield Village, a restored rural town; and he built what later was named the Henry Ford Museum and filled it with American artifacts and antiques from the era of his youth when American society was almost wholly agrarian. In short, he was a man who baffled even those who had the opportunity to observe him close at hand, all except James Couzens, Ford's business manager from the founding of the company until his resignation in 1915, who always said, “You cannot analyze genius and Ford is a genius.”

Ford died at home in 1947, exactly 100 years after his father had left Ireland for Michigan. His holdings in Ford stock went to the Ford Foundation, which had been set up in 1936 as

a means of retaining family control of the firm and which subsequently became the richest private foundation in the world.

Carol W. Gelderman

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Henry Ford

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John D Rockefeller biography

Synopsis

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER WAS BORN ON JULY 8, 1839, IN RICHFORD, NEW YORK. HE BUILT HIS FIRST OIL REFINERY, NEAR CLEVELAND AND IN 1870 HE INCORPORATED THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY. BY 1882 IT HAD A NEAR MONOPOLY OF THE OIL BUSINESS IN THE US, BUT AGGRESSIVE COMPETITIVE PRACTICES OF THE COMPANY LED TO THE PASSING OF ANTIMONOPOLY LAWS. LATE IN LIFE ROCKEFELLER DEVOTED HIMSELF TO PHILANTHROPY. HE DIED IN 1937.

Profile

(BORN JULY 8, 1839, RICHFORD, NEW YORK, U.S.—DIED MAY 23, 1937, ORMOND BEACH, FLORIDA) AMERICAN INDUSTRIALIST AND PHILANTHROPIST, FOUNDER OF THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY, WHICH DOMINATED THE OIL INDUSTRY AND WAS THE FIRST GREAT U.S. BUSINESS TRUST.

Rockefeller moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1853, and six years later he established his first enterprise—a commission business dealing in hay, grain, meats, and other goods. Sensing the commercial potential of the expanding oil production in western Pennsylvania in the early 1860s, he built his first oil refinery, near Cleveland, in 1863. Within two years it was the largest refinery in the area, and thereafter Rockefeller devoted himself exclusively to the oil business.

In 1870 Rockefeller and a few associates incorporated the Standard Oil Company (Ohio). Because of Rockefeller's emphasis on economical operations, Standard prospered and began to buy out its competitors until, by 1872, it controlled nearly all the refineries in Cleveland. That fact enabled the company to negotiate with railroads for favoured rates on its shipments of oil. It acquired pipelines and terminal facilities, purchased competing refineries in other cities, and vigorously sought to expand its markets in the United States and abroad. By 1882 it had a near monopoly of the oil business in the United States. In 1881 Rockefeller and his associates placed the stock of Standard of Ohio and its affiliates in other states under the control of a board of nine trustees, with Rockefeller at the head. They thus established the first major U.S. “trust” and set a pattern of organization for other monopolies.

The aggressive competitive practices of Standard Oil, which many regarded as ruthless, and the growing public hostility toward monopolies, of which Standard was the best-known, caused some industrialized states to enact antimonopoly laws and led to the passage by the U.S. Congress of the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). In 1892 the Ohio Supreme Court held that the Standard Oil Trust was a monopoly in violation of an Ohio law prohibiting monopolies. Rockefeller evaded the decision by dissolving the trust and transferring its properties to companies in other states, with interlocking directorates so that the same nine men controlled the operations of the affiliated companies. In 1899 these companies were brought back together in a holding company, Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), which existed until 1911, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared it in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and therefore illegal.

A devout Baptist, Rockefeller turned

his attention increasingly during the 1890s to charities and benevolence; after 1897 he devoted himself completely to philanthropy. He made possible the founding of the University of Chicago in 1892, and by the time of his death he had given it more than $80 million. In association with his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., he created major philanthropic institutions, including the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (renamed Rockefeller University) in New York City (1901); the General Education Board (1902); and the Rockefeller Foundation (1913). Rockefeller's benefactions during his lifetime totaled more than $500 million.

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John D Rockefeller

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Andrew Carnegie biography

Synopsis

ANDREW CARNEGIE WAS BORN ON NOVEMBER 25, 1835, IN DUNFERMLINE, SCOTLAND. AFTER MOVING TO THE UNITED STATES, HE WORKED A SERIES OF RAILROAD JOBS. BY 1889 HE OWNED CARNEGIE STEEL CORPORATION, THE LARGEST OF ITS KIND IN THE WORLD. IN 1901 HE SOLD HIS BUSINESS AND DEDICATED HIS TIME TO EXPANDING HIS PHILANTHROPIC WORK, INCLUDING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY IN 1904.

Early Life

INDUSTRIALIST AND PHILANTHROPIST. BORN ON NOVEMBER 25, 1835, IN DUNFERMLINE, FIFE, SCOTLAND. ALTHOUGH HE HAD LITTLE FORMAL EDUCATION, HE GREW UP IN A FAMILY THAT BELIEVED IN THE IMPORTANCE OF BOOKS AND LEARNING. THE SON OF A HANDLOOM WEAVER, CARNEGIE GREW UP TO BECOME ONE OF THE WEALTHIEST BUSINESSMEN IN AMERICA.

AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN, CARNEGIE CAME TO THE UNITED STATES IN 1848 WITH HIS FAMILY. THEY SETTLED IN ALLEGHENY, PENNSYLVANIA, AND CARNEGIE WENT TO WORK IN A FACTORY, EARNING $1.20 A WEEK. THE NEXT YEAR HE FOUND A JOB AS A TELEGRAPH MESSENGER. HOPING TO ADVANCE HIS CAREER, HE MOVED UP TO A TELEGRAPH OPERATOR POSITION IN 1851. HE THEN TOOK A JOB AT THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD IN 1853. HE WORKED AS THE ASSISTANT AND TELEGRAPHER TO THOMAS SCOTT, ONE OF THE RAILROAD'S TOP OFFICIALS. THROUGH THIS EXPERIENCE, HE LEARNED ABOUT THE RAILROAD INDUSTRY AND ABOUT BUSINESS IN GENERAL. THREE YEARS LATER, CARNEGIE WAS PROMOTED TO SUPERINTENDENT.

Steel Tycoon

WHILE WORKING FOR THE RAILROAD, CARNEGIE BEGAN MAKING INVESTMENTS. HE MADE MANY WISE CHOICES AND FOUND THAT HIS INVESTMENTS, ESPECIALLY THOSE IN OIL, BROUGHT IN SUBSTANTIAL RETURNS. HE LEFT THE RAILROAD IN 1865 TO FOCUS ON HIS OTHER BUSINESS INTERESTS, INCLUDING THE KEYSTONE BRIDGE COMPANY.

BY THE NEXT DECADE, MOST OF CARNEGIE'S TIME WAS DEDICATED TO THE STEEL INDUSTRY. HIS BUSINESS, WHICH BECAME KNOWN AS THE CARNEGIE STEEL COMPANY, REVOLUTIONIZED STEEL PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES. CARNEGIE BUILT PLANTS AROUND THE COUNTRY, USING TECHNOLOGY AND METHODS THAT MADE MANUFACTURING STEEL EASIER, FASTER, AND MORE PRODUCTIVE. FOR EVERY STEP OF THE PROCESS, HE OWNED EXACTLY WHAT HE NEEDED: THE RAW MATERIALS, SHIPS AND RAILROADS FOR TRANSPORTING THE GOODS, AND EVEN COAL FIELDS TO FUEL THE STEEL FURNACES. THIS START-TO-FINISH STRATEGY HELPED CARNEGIE BECOME THE DOMINANT FORCE IN THE INDUSTRY AND AN EXCEEDINGLY WEALTHY MAN. BY 1889, CARNEGIE STEEL CORPORATION WAS THE LARGEST OF ITS KIND IN THE WORLD.

SOME FELT THAT THE COMPANY'S SUCCESS CAME AT THE EXPENSE OF ITS WORKERS. THE MOST NOTABLE CASE OF THIS CAME IN 1892. WHEN THE COMPANY TRIED TO LOWER WAGES AT A CARNEGIE STEEL PLANT IN HOMESTEAD, PENNSYLVANIA, THE EMPLOYEES OBJECTED. THEY REFUSED TO WORK, STARTING WHAT HAS BEEN CALLED THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE OF 1892. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE WORKERS AND LOCAL MANAGERS TURNED VIOLENT AFTER THE MANAGERS CALLED IN GUARDS TO BREAK UP THE UNION. WHILE CARNEGIE WAS AWAY AT THE TIME OF STRIKE, MANY STILL HELD HIM ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS MANAGERS' ACTIONS.

Philanthropy

IN 1901, CARNEGIE MADE A DRAMATIC CHANGE IN HIS LIFE. HE SOLD HIS BUSINESS TO THE UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION, STARTED BY LEGENDARY FINANCIER J. P. MORGAN. THE SALE EARNED HIM MORE THAN $200 MILLION. AT THE AGE OF 65, CARNEGIE DECIDED TO SPEND THE REST OF HIS DAYS HELPING OTHERS. WHILE HE HAD BEGUN HIS PHILANTHROPIC WORK YEARS EARLIER BY BUILDING LIBRARIES AND MAKING DONATIONS, CARNEGIE EXPANDED HIS EFFORTS IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY.

CARNEGIE, AN AVID READER FOR MUCH OF HIS LIFE, DONATED APPROXIMATELY $5 MILLION TO THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY SO THAT THE LIBRARY COULD OPEN SEVERAL BRANCHES IN 1901. DEVOTED TO LEARNING, HE ESTABLISHED THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY IN PITTSBURGH, WHICH IS NOW KNOWN AS CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY IN 1904. THE NEXT YEAR HE CREATED THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING IN 1905. WITH HIS STRONG INTEREST TO PEACE, HE FORMED THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE IN 1910. HE MADE NUMEROUS OTHER DONATIONS, AND IT IS SAID THAT MORE THAN 2,800 LIBRARIES WERE OPENED WITH HIS SUPPORT.

BESIDES HIS BUSINESS AND CHARITABLE INTERESTS, CARNEGIE ENJOYED TRAVELING AND MEETING AND ENTERTAINING LEADING FIGURES IN MANY FIELDS. HE WAS FRIENDS WITH MATTHEW ARNOLD, MARK TWAIN, WILLIAM GLADSTONE, AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT. CARNEGIE ALSO WROTE SEVERAL BOOKS AND NUMEROUS ARTICLES. HIS 1889 ARTICLE "WEALTH" OUTLINED HIS VIEW THAT THOSE WITH GREAT WEALTH MUST

be socially responsible and use their assets to help others. This was later published as the 1900 book The Gospel of Wealth.

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Andrew Carnegie

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