America is in the Palm of our Hands

Essential Question: Are the captains of industry a positive or negative impact to the public?

In class this week, we learned a lot about Carnegie and Rockefeller. Carnegie and Rockefeller were big businessmen during the late 1800's which was the age of industry. We read two documents about both of those men and how they came to power with such wealth. We read the documents in our groups as usual and then we analysed a couple pictures that represented the two men. One painting was of a octopus with a oil tank on top of it. The octopus has its tentacles around a state house, the capitol, shipping industries and copper and coal industries. The picture is obviously showing how much control the oil industry has. As a class we went around and shared our opinions on the painting. Finally we could come up with an essential that made sense. After a couple of attempts we came up with the question "are the captains of industry of a positive or negative impact to the public?" We used evidence from the videos and documents to come up with the essential question.

My opinion is that the captains of industry had a fairly positive impact on the public. The big captains of industry were John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. Rockefeller made his wealth off of oil and Carnegie made his off of steel. Rockefeller's goals when he was younger was to make 100,000 dollars and to live to 100 years old. His peak earnings got up to 313,000,000,000 billion dollars based on today's dollar. So he blew his first goal out of the water. He did not complete his second goal though, he died soon before his 98th birthday. The massive companies made by Carnegie and Rockefeller were able to keep the prices low for consumers of America. They were able to buy the businesses product for a low amount of money. The companies also created a new, more efficient way of industry and transportation. The companies also had the money that the government did not have so they payed for modernizing the industry. John Rockefeller donated a lot of his money. He donated 500 million dollars to charity and education. Many schools were built because of Rockefeller's non greediness. He was also to keep the shipping rates down so that the country could ship goods for less cost. The title that was given to Rockefeller was “Greatest business leader in American History.” He also helped eradicate the Yellow Fever with his charity work. Andrew Carnegie made his fortune of the production of steel. He helped create the Bessemer process which made making steel more quickly and cheaply. The point of this process was to remove the impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron. This helped the public because more steel was available for purchase, and since it was cheaper to produce, Carnegie was able to put a lower price tag. The cheaper price of steel put his competitors out of sight, but it was better for the consumers. Carnegie also helped build schools which lead to a better education in many states. The two captains of industry Carnegie and Rockefeller both helped America in advancing their government and their industry. They both didn’t do only great things though. Rockefeller was known for taking down small businesses so his business could be a monopoly. He usually bought out the companies or used cheap tactics to take them out. The industry moguls did do more good things than bad things to the public during their time of rule.  

This drawing shows how John D Rockefeller was the “king of the world”. He is sitting on top of a barrel of oil and money bags next to it.