America's Big Break

This week, during history, we learned about the era of economic growth after the Civil War fiasco. During this era, sometimes referred as the "Age of Industry", many individual business men saw to the creation of huge companies and monopolies on common everyday items. These men were often referred as "Captains of industries" by the public. Two of the most notable "Captains of industry" were Andrew Carnegie, a scottish immigrant who eventually gained a monopoly on American steel production, and  John Rockefeller, a business mogul who monopolized all the oil trade in North America. Due to their unprincipled tactics, such as slaughtering competition and bribing congressmen, to gain wealth, many people perceived the Captains of Industry as thieves, and often called the Captains of industry names like "Robber Barons". However, these men still tried to show their support to the public by graciously donating to schools, colleges, and any other organization that tried to do good for society. This week our essential question was a little different than usual, instead of having a fixed essential question like usual, we instead created our own essential question. the essential question we created was: Did the captains of industry create a positive or negative impact on the public? To try to answer this question we looked at the two of the most prominent Captains, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.

John Rockefeller was born in 1839. At first John grew up form a relatively poor home in Richford, New York, but once the Civil War started, Rockefeller took advantage of the situation, by supporting the union, and supplying the Union army with supplies. After the war, Rockefeller created a oil company, Standard Oil, which soon controlled a monopoly on oil in the Americas due to Rockefeller's shrewd business skills. Any oil company that tried to compete with Rockefeller was put out of business immediately. The other hand, Rockefeller also had a kind heart in regards to beneficiary charities; he donated millions of dollars from his personal fortunes in to developing fields for medicine, technological improvements, education and most fields of science.

Andrew Carnegie was started of as a poor immigrant worker from Dunfermline, Scotland. He immigrated to the U.S. and started off as a lowly telegraph work. Within a couple of decades, Carnegie would have one of the most profitable companies in the U.S and a huge monopoly on steel products. With his leadership, U.S metal productions surpassed the all of the in Europe. Carnegie donated millions of his fortunes to promoteHomestead strike.

Forces putting down the Homestead strike

education, art, technology and  public knowledge. Though Carnegie had the best of intentions for the public, his reputation is darkened by his infamous part in the disbanding of the

Though both Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller are often unjustly labeled as villains who steal money from the masses, in my opinion they had a good effect on the population. The captains of industry created the  idea that anyone from any type of background, could become million or billionaires. Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller are both help create the idea that if anyone worked hard enough they could achieve unimaginable wealth.