Carnegie`s corporate philosophy was simple. He kept a lot of the gains he made in the good times to fill it and give him flexibility in the bad times. It used these revenues to expand into depressions when construction costs were low and competitors were forced to the wall and had to sell at low prices. More importantly, he was open to constant technological and business innovations to reduce even a little bit in operating costs, as they had much more impact on profits than construction costs. The strategy has been a great success. In addition, Carnegie Steel bought its raw materials and shipping sources (under a strategy called vertical integration) and bought and absorbed its competitors (horizontal integration) to dominate the steel industry. By the 1890s, it was the largest and most profitable steel company in the world. Carnegie`s share was $225.64 million ($7.35 billion in 2021), paid to Carnegie in the form of 50% 50-year gold bonds. The letter of agreement to sell his share was signed on February 26, 1901.
On March 2, the circular officially stated that the organization and capitalization of the United States Steel Corporation (then $1.4 billion to 4% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP)) had effectively completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey, in escrow to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie`s Secretary of Commerce. A special safe was built there to house the physical majority of the bonds, worth nearly $230 million. [39] The company operates two joint ventures in Pittsburg, California with POSCO of South Korea. [80] After leaving his position on the railroad in 1865, Carnegie continued his rise in business. With the United States the railroad industry then entered a period of rapid growth, expanding its investments in railways and creating companies such as a Keystone Bridge Company and a telegraph company, often using its connections to obtain insider contracts.
By the beginning of his 30th birthday, Carnegie had become a very wealthy man. Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff`s company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of the sleeping car for first-class travel, which facilitated business travel over 500 miles (800 km). The investment proved to be a success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. Young Carnegie continued to work for Tom Scott of Pennsylvania and introduced several improvements to the service. Schwab visited Carnegie at a Carnegie-maintained cottage on the St. Andrews golf course north of New York City, and during a round of golf, Carnegie agreed to sell U.S. Steel to Morgan for $492,000,000. When Carnegie later shook his hand, he said, “Congratulations on becoming the richest man in the world.” Carnegie had come a long way from his first job as a bobbin lace boy, earning $1.20 a week.
Although U.S. Steel remained the largest steel producer in the United States, by the end of the 20th century only about one-third of its steel business remained. The acquisitions of Marathon Oil Company in 1982 and Texas Oil & Gas Corp. in 1986 had given U.S. Steel significant interests in the oil and gas industry. The company had also expanded into industries such as mining, chemicals, construction, real estate, and transportation (including railways, shipping, and shipbuilding). In 1986, the holding company USX Corporation was created to oversee diversified interests, which were divided into four operating entities: USS (for steel), Marathon Oil, Texas Oil & Gas and U.S. Diversified Group (including chemical, engineering and real estate activities). U.
The Steel Group was spun off from USX in 2002 and returned to an independent publicly traded company under its original name, United States Steel Corporation. In 2003, it acquired the steel operations of the National Steel Corporation. Strong public pressure forced the company to abandon its 12-hour day and introduce the standard eight-hour day. [34] In the 1920s, U.S. Steel, like many other large employers, associated paternalistic employment practices with “employee union plans” (LES), which were unions of management-sponsored companies. These LES eventually became an important factor that led to the organization of the United Steelworkers of America. The company abandoned its hard-line and anti-union stance in 1937 when Myron Taylor, then president of U.S. Steel, agreed to recognize the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, a branch of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) led by John L. Lewis. Taylor was an outsider who was brought to bail out U.S. Steel during the Great Depression and had no emotional investment in the company`s long history of opposing unions. Observing the riots sparked by the successful strike at the United Auto Workers sit-in in Flint, Michigan, Taylor was convinced that Lewis was someone with whom he could deal on a professional basis and sought stability through collective bargaining.
[35] [36] Researchers at the Research Institute of Political Economy conducted Steel is the eighth largest producer of air pollution in the United States (up from the second in 2000). [45] In 2008, the company released over one million kg (2.2 million pounds) of toxins, primarily ammonia, hydrochloric acid, ethylene, zinc compounds, methanol and benzene, as well as manganese, cyanide and chromium compounds. [46] In 2004, the town of River Rouge, Michigan, and residents of River Rouge and nearby Ecorse filed a class action lawsuit against the company for “the release and release of atmospheric particulate matter. and other toxic and dangerous substances”[47] in his book River Rouge. In September 1848, Carnegie arrived in Allegheny with his family.[48] Carnegie`s father had trouble selling his product on his own. [15] Eventually, father and son received job offers at the same Scottish cotton mill, Anchor Cotton Mills. Carnegie`s first job in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of yarn in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton mill. His starting salary was $1.20 per week ($38 until 2021 inflation). [16] 2.
Andrew Carnegie successfully used what strategy to build the world`s most successful steel company? In 1901, he donated $10 million to Scotland to found the Carnegie Trust for Scottish Universities. It was created by a charter he signed on June 7, 1901 and was incorporated by the Royal Charter on August 21, 1902. The inaugural donation of £10 million was an unprecedented sum at the time: at the time, the government`s total support for Scotland`s four universities was around £50,000 a year. The aim of the Trust was to improve and expand opportunities for scientific research at Scottish universities and to enable deserving and qualified young Scots to go to university. Subsequently, he was appointed Lord Rector of the University of St. Andrews in December 1901,[58] and officially appointed as such in October 1902,[59] where he served until 1907.[57] He also donated large sums of money to Dunfermline, his birthplace. In addition to a library, Carnegie also purchased the private estate which became Pittencrieff Park and opened it to all members of the public and established the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust[60] for the benefit of the people of Dunfermline. A statue of Carnegie was later erected in the park between 1913-14 to commemorate his creation of the park. [61] [62] [63] After Carnegie sold his steel business, the 5`3″ little Titan retired from the business and devoted himself full-time to philanthropy. In 1889 he had written an essay entitled “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he declared that the rich “have a moral obligation to distribute [their money] in a manner which promotes the well-being and happiness of the common man.” Carnegie also said, “The man who dies so rich dies in disgrace.
According to author Douglas Blackmon in Slavery by Another Name,[10] the growth of U.S. Steel and its subsidiaries in the South depended in part on the labor of well-paid black workers and exploited convicts. The company was able to preserve black workers at a fraction of the cost of white workers by taking advantage of black codes and discriminatory laws introduced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was adopted by the southern states after the Reconstruction era. In addition, U.S. Steel had agreements with more than 20 counties in Alabama to support the labor of its prisoners, often paying residents nine dollars a month for forced laborers in their mines through a convict rental system.