The Different Business Practices of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller

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Without Carnegie, the steel industry, and the second industrial revolution in general, would never have progressed as much as it did. Carnegie did what was necessary to make the steel industry more productive and more efficient, for less money. He was a shrewd, ruthless, businessman who’s aggressiveness made the steel, railroad, and oil industries so economically successful. These characteristics, though not always looked upon as nice or sympathetic, were sometimes necessary. He had paid his time as a poor factory boy, and now it was his turn to live comfortably and aid others less fortunate to work towards the same success.

The Carnegie Steel Company was a successful factory, which employed many hundred of workers. Andrew Carnegie, who was the owner of the company, wanted a large successful business, which he had achieved already, but he was always looking for ways to save and make more money. By 1892, unions had been formed

From the years 1870-1937 John D. Rockefeller was a Captain of Industry and truly was an example of the idyllic American dream. He by his success as a Captain of Industry also set a precedent from then on about the way that other Captains of Industries made their wealth and ran their companies as well. Furthermore, John D. Rockefeller was a Captain of Industry because he built the Standard Oil Company and was a very generous philanthropist. John D. Rockefeller did generate lots of revenue and create many jobs in the United States but it also can be said that he took advantage of the less fortunate by paying them less and buying out competing businesses.

Captains of industry were defined as the business leaders whose means of amassing a personal fortune contributed positively to the country or society in some way. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were considered to be captains of industry because with their profits from either their steel company or standard oil company, they give back to the society instead of themselves. They believed in the idea that people give in to you, in which you must give out as well. They established many charitable foundations that allowed them to become well known philanthropist and made them distinguishable from the rubber barons.

Although Carnegie liked to be the tough businessman, he was not a monopolist and did not like monopolists. On the other side of the pool, Rockefeller was dominating the oil industry with no mercy. He believed in primitive savagery in the world of business, where only the fittest survived. He helped coin the term ‘ruin or rule.’ Rockefeller had a great belief in ruthless business, yet Carnegie did not. But in the end both had the most successful companies in their industries.

Wealthy industrialists and financiers such as John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Company; Andrew Carnegie, the self-made steel tycoon and philanthropist; Cornelius Vanderbilt, known for developing the inland water trade and rapidly growing railroad industry after building the New York Central Railroad; and Jay Gould, a developer of the railroads, were labeled as “robber barons,” meaning an American capitalist who became

George Eastman and John D. Rockefeller were both captains of industry due to being philanthropists and innovators. George Eastman was an innovator by reinventing how people can take pictures. Before Eastman recreated the camera it was expensive, timely, and very bulky. Only rich people could afford camera equimpment and it was hard to bring anywhere because of how heavy it was. After Eastman’s new camera came out almost everyone could afford one, it was lighter, and much faster. More companies started to get into the camera business and more people became interested in photography. John Rockefeller was an innovator because he made oil a more usable resource. For example oil could now be used for cars and other machines instead of coal, because of this whales stopped getting hunted for whale oil.

Another incredibly powerful monopoly was founded by Carnegie Steel. Originally Carnegie made his way to the top in the Pennsylvania railroad business using keynote iron to make the rails, but then when steel was discovered he immediately invested. In the beginning he invested 11% and within a year owned 50% of the company. What was astonishing about Carnegie was that he grew up with an extremely poor family. In his later years Carnegie says,"In my childhood I finally began to learn what poverty meant, it was burnt into my heart then that my father had to beg for work. And then and there came the resolve that I would cure that when I got to be a man." These are touching words coming from a man who without hesitation lowered each salary of hardworking employees, men and children who already had low income as it was. In 1900 Carnegie started buying cheaper steel to be an added competitor

Everyone has something to give. What is given can be quantified in many different ways. Some people give ideas. Some people give their loyalty. For others, their effort and hard-work. Few though, are able to give what men like Andrew Carnegie were able to give; hope. That hope, however, came in the form of money. Building wealth is no easy task but giving that wealth away for the benefit of society, is the ultimate good that can be done with it. Carnegie wasn’t the only, or even the first to realize the importance of philanthropy. Johns Hopkins and John Rockefeller were two other very important players throughout American history that were instrumental in improving the society we live in today. With the current climate that Americans find themselves

Standard Oil was the United States’ first monopoly, and it was a rollercoaster of a ride for the company. Standard Oil started from the ground up and grew into a massive enterprise, that would eventually make John D. Rockefeller the richest man in the world. This would come at a price, the demise of Standard Oil, but multiple companies are born out of the demise of Standard Oil that become some of the largest oil companies today. Standard Oil even caused the United States of America to create a federal act to try and control monopolies from eliminating competition in unethical ways, and from becoming so powerful that they can control not just their markets, but other markets too, and from having the ability to change the price on consumers

By establishing these set shipping rates with the railroad companies, it not only made it impossible for his competitors to stay in business, but it also allowed Rockefeller to establish a strong relationship with a key method of transportation for shipping products (Biography). By establishing a strong relationship with the railroad companies, Rockefeller was able to use his successful business practice to “control over 90 percent of the nation’s oil-refining industry by 1880” (The New Tycoons). As time continued on and his business became more successful, he also applied another clever business strategy known as vertical integration. This process consisted of a company purchasing and controlling each and every step of one’s industry production process. Rockefeller’s company used this process very efficiently as they “became known to manipulate crude oil prices to drive refineries to bankruptcy, allowing him to buy them cheaply” (Epstein). By controlling each production step, he was able to minimize costs by removing any companies from the middle that were previously completing steps on the way to the finish product. Rockefeller was also known to manipulate prices of crude oil in order to drive his competing refineries into bankruptcy which allowed him to buy them cheaply (Epstein). However, his economic beliefs and ideas were not the only strategies which John Rockefeller used to elevate his business and personal profile to a national level and

Their great business capacity would have insure the managers of the Standard Oil Company success, but the means by which they achieved monopoly was by conspiracy with the railroads. John D. Rockefeller killed his rivals by getting the great Railroad lines to refuse to give them transportation. Multimillionaire

Despite the fact, avoiding a disapproval or blame of capitalism and recognizing Rockefeller’s excellence, she didn’t wait to judge the man for condescending to unprincipled industry performs. Ida Tarbell finished up her sequence through a split appeal learning of Rockefeller, as she defined him as an “existing mummy’’. Civic rage on the disclosure is ascribed with the ultimate collapse of Standard Oil, which arose when the U.S. Supreme Court reined in 1911to the fact that the business was betraying the Sherman Antitrust Act. Ida then eventually enforced the Americans to reflect on the country’s popular industrialist and how he was using despicable strategies to break sincere challengers, pouring truthful men from business. Finally, Standard Oil was divided into small Standards, which included ExxonMobil and Chevron for example. Rockefeller was very surprised and hurt by Ida’s examination. He had clarified her as a toxic woman but had not forgotten to tell the guides not to remark on Ida’s series or any kind of

John D. Rockefeller, the founder of the Standard Oil Company, became one of the United State’s wealthiest men and a major philanthropist. Rockefeller was born into modest circumstances in New York. John entered the then young oil business in 1863 by investing in a Cleveland, Ohio refinery. In 1870, he established Standard Oil, which in the 1880s controlled almost ninety percent of U.S. refineries and pipelines. People accuse Rockefeller of engaging in unfair and unethical practices, such as predatory pricing and colluding with railroads to eliminate his competitors in order to gain a monopoly in the oil industry. In 1911, the Supreme Court found Standard Oil in violation of antitrust laws and ordered it to disband. During his life, Rockefeller donated more than five hundred million dollars to many philanthropic causes.