U.S. History 1877-Present 3: Andew Carnegie

first arrived in Pennsylvania he went to work in a cotton mill like any other

poor kid would do but andc did not end his days making $1 a week like most

other factory workers a dollar a week since back then hitting up the mcdonald [Man wearing crown]

dollar menus would have been decadent well he moved up the ladder to be a

messenger boy for a telegraph company sweet and then he became a telegraph

operator for a railroad even sweeter and then he worked his way up to be a

manager sweeter still and when the Civil War began

Carnegie ended up being the guy in charge of the huge and complicated [Carnegie surrounded by books and papers]

logistics process of transporting Union soldiers across the country sickeningly

sweet all right well in 1864 Carnegie took some cash and invested it in a

steel mill and then things got real after the war he focused his mad skills [Carnegie watering plants]

on creating the biggest steel company in the world

the Carnegie steel company instead of focusing on just one part of the steel

making process chronica dominated the entire process by owning it meaning he

bought the mines that produce the iron ore he bought the railroads that took [Carnegie with property of Andrew sign at rail roads]

the iron to the steel mills and then took the steel beams out to play yeah

kind of fun if it looked like steel acted like steel or smelled like steel

well then Carnegie owned it he also adopted and fine-tuned the Bessemer

process that's when process was a way of making steel that was stronger than the

norm that would have given Carnegie an edge all by itself but the Bessemer

process was also cheaper than the old way of doing things and with that [Men stood in line for unemployment]

Carnegie made his competitors weeps and sent them tissues but tissues were made

of steel so they kind of hurt blew into us well Carnegie made some

serious money after the war obviously the u.s. was all about building then

skyscrapers bridges libraries schools railroads and everything was filled with [Buildings appear in skyline]

feel Carnegie had the cheapest strongest steel it was the most available and so

well he became the go-to guy whenever anybody wanted to build and pretty much

anything well the 1901 Carnegie was ready to

retire so he sold Carnegie steel to banker JP Morgan who turned it into an [Carnegie hands paper to JP Morgan]

even more gargantuan corporation called yes US Steel well it was the first

corporation to be valued at over a billion dollars Carnegie was out of the

steel business with only the half billion dollars Morgan paid him to keep

warm of course with a half a billion dollars Carnegie could have literally [Carnegie sat beside fire]

thrown the money into fireplaces and will kiss warm for a while but he didn't

do that at least 350 million dollars of that fortune went to charity [Carnegie with giant check hands it to homeless man]

well Carnegie was kind of like Scrooge at the end of Christmas Carol he'd

relied on the kindness of strangers who lent him books and he was a poor factory

kid so in his rich old age he funded the construction and stocking of 3,000

libraries across the country he also famously funded Carnegie Hall the

concert hall in New York City and he funded the creation of Carnegie Mellon [Carnegie statue appears]

University that's why it was named after him well you know and a melon

that's melon with 2 L's well that's another rich guy's last name anyway in a latter

years Carnegie did not start talking to fruit.... [Carnegie appears behind statue with fruit]