Talk:Andrew Carnegie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Andrew Carnegie has been listed as a good article on a businessperson for meeting the criteria for this category of articles. If you can expand or improve it further, please do so! If it does not meet the criteria, or has ceased to since its inclusion, you can delist it or ask for a review.

Andrew Carnegie is either included in the Wikipedia CD Selection or is a candidate for inclusion in the next version (the project page is at WPCD Selection). Please maintain high quality standards, and if possible stick to GFDL images. However, if you can improve the article, please do so!

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
GA	This article has been rated as GA-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ] (If you rated the article, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

	Andrew Carnegie is within the scope of WikiProject Scotland, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Scotland and Scotland-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
GA	This article has been rated as GA-Class on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Article Grading: The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.
WikiProject Scotland To-do: edit  Template:Scotland opentask

	Andrew Carnegie is part of WikiProject Pennsylvania, which is building a comprehensive and detailed guide to Pennsylvania on Wikipedia. To participate, you can edit the attached article, join or discuss the project.
GA	This article has been rated as GA-Class on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

Andrew Carnegie is part of WikiProject Pittsburgh, which is building a comprehensive guide to the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania metropolitan area and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, you can edit the attached article, join, or discuss the project.Editors are currently needed to tag Pittsburgh-related articles with {{pghproj}}.

Did Carnegie invent a new process for manufacturing steel? This article is certainly far shorter than it ought eventually to become. -- Mike Hardy

Contents 1 Early Life 2 Philanthropies 3 Disgrace? 4 Immigrate / Emigrate 5 Looking for assertions 6 Wife and family? 7 Pronunciation 8 Wikification 9 Hagiography 10 Later Personal Life 11 The Philippines 12 Self made man?

[edit] Early Life

Changed a sentenced that said slavery was referred to as "the peculiar institution" as a euphemism from its apologists. It was actually a neutral term, and "peculiar" was used in the sense that it was only common in one particular region of the United States, namely the South.

--Michael Hollinger-- I could find no external corroboration for a 5 yr. old Andrew Carnegie killing Piedmont Morgan. Could someone cite a reference for that?

[edit] Philanthropies

I'm new to Wikipedia and I know I should just add to this entry, and maybe someday I will. In the meantime, here are a few other Carnegie philanthropies in the U.S. that deserve mention:

• Carnegie Corporation of New York
• Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

There's a good list here: [1]

Alex

Many of today's private secular colleges/universities dropped their religious affiliations in the early 1900's. I remember reading somewhere this was because Carnegie stipulated secular conditions before he would help support a school. Does anyone know if this is correct? I can't find anything on google.

[edit] Disgrace?

I just reverted a change that suggested that Carnegie wanted to give all his money away rather than die "disgraced". I thought that the change was somewhat spurious and without substance. So, if he was "disgraced", then what was he "disgraced" about? --Colin Angus Mackay 23:27, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Response,

Andrew Carnegie once wrote that "The man who dies thus rich, dies disgraced." He sincerly believed that dying with money was a waste, and that it was disgraceful to waste capital.

Also:

It seems odd that theories of monpolization or industrial integration don't appear in this article. Do we have a problem with point of view? Whether you think his business practices were good or not, it's important that this article has fair coverage from both perspectives on this man.

[edit] Immigrate / Emigrate

Will people please stop changing immigrate to emmigrate and back again. I thought it was wrong to begin with, but I checked the dictionary and immigrate (however much it sounds odd to some) is correct. You emmigrate FROM somewhere, and you immigrate TO somewhere. I'm now going to change it back.... again. --Colin Angus Mackay 22:13, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to be a narc, but emigrate has only one "m", while immigrate has two. I don't know which dictionary you used, but "emmigrate" (2 ms) is in none of the ones I have looked in. That's English for you. I've changed the heading. Cheers JackofOz 23:20, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for assertions

When reading this article, i was looking for actions that would support this guy's assession. I found none. I didn't know they guy until today, but is the absence of such competitive behaviour due to the article's missing something or is the post on this link pushing a point too far? Just a curious reader. This is the statement that triggered me to read this article "I'm trying to think of another historical figure in the United States history who was that powerful, that philanthropic, and yet that reviled. Andrew Carnegie maybe."[2] gathima 00:44, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

An article was published in Scotland's Sunday Herald newspaper a few days ago that might shed some light on that claim.

He [American historian David Nasaw] has unearthed numerous documents that previous biographers had no access to or didn’t find, including a prenuptial agreement signed by Carnegie and his wife Louise Whitfield in April 1887 – which according to the historian is one of the first prenuptial documents ever made – and an 1885 letter the philanthropist wrote to British Prime Minister William Gladstone.

Both documents, Nasaw claims, prove that Carnegie planned to give away his fortune before the Homestead riots of 1892, when Carnegie’s attempt to break the union at his steel factory resulted in a bloody strike in which some of the workers died.

Nasaw said: “The general notion is that Carnegie gave away money to either rescue a failing reputation after Homestead and/or assuage his guilt for Homestead. This was certainly the opinion of his numerous critics on both sides of the Atlantic.

“What I’m sure of is that they [his previous biographers] didn’t understand – as I do because of my discovery of the 1885 letter to Gladstone and the 1887 prenuptial – that Carnegie had decided to give his money away long before Homestead and his retirement.” [3].

I hope that helps. --Colin Angus Mackay 11:41, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wife and family?

Wife and daughters' names aren't mentioned...

Wife's name was Louise Whitfield, and daughter's name was Margaret (added into article) --Djamund 14:39, 13 Nov 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

Could someone please address the pronunciation of his name? I believe it's karNAYggee, but one often hears KARnuhggee.Rockhopper10r 15:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

As a Scot, I would (roughly) agree with your first pronunciation. We say it (approximately) car-Nay-gay (but all-run-together). I cannot comment on how Americans or others may pronounce it, but it is highly likely that Carnegie himself used the Scottish pronunciation.--Mais oui! 20:56, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

As another Scot, I'd agree with that pronounciation. --Colin Angus Mackay 00:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

For American pronunciation, I believe it is "Car-NAY-Gee". But since his last name is not English the true pronunciation might be the one that they listed above. 24.8.205.77 04:48, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

My personal, American, opinion is that it is pronounced KARnuhggee as mentioned above. I've heard that a lot more often than I've heard karNAYggee. Amalas 14:48, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I think in Scotland it is pronounced Kar-negg-ee, but certainly in the U.S., references to Carnegie Hall always seem to be pronounced Kar-nugg-ee. Legis 08:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyone want to have a go at putting this in International Phonetic Alphabet? It would help for clearing this up. I also don't know if there's a way to link to a sound file which will "speak" the correct pronunciation, but if possible, that would be nice too! Isoxyl 15:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

As an American, Pittsburgher, and student at Carnegie Mellon University.... There is no consensus, but most locals say Car-neggy. And this absolutely does not belong in the Trivia section. It belongs next to his name at the beginning, or not at all, and it belongs in IPA. It also belongs wherever it goes along with a citation. The present blurb in the trivia section is utterly unsupported, and very few of the people around here say that. Greyscale 11:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikification

This article is in a bit of a mess. Has someone been adding vast screeds recently? It is far too long, not split up into readable sections, and where on earth did all the linking go? It needs some gentle, loving wikification.

And I cannot help but say that some of the language used is ridiculous: it seems to me that someone has been copying huge chunks verbatim out of some very old text. I don't remember the article being this bad the last time I read it about a month ago.--Mais oui! 22:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, some editor added a huge portion about Carnegie's life. I did a cursory search on google to try and see if it was copyvio from some other site, but couldn't find anything. --Syrthiss 14:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I did the same. I have posted a question on the users talk page (User:82.22.86.199). -- Mwanner | Talk 14:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hagiography

I started doing some editing to this article but had to stop because it is far too biased in his favour. The language clearly isn't neutral at all, and, likely, neither are the facts. Stearnsbrian 06:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Later Personal Life

It seems odd to me that the Later Personal Life section is listed after his death, but I'm not sure where else it should go. Amalas 14:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Philippines

In 1898, Andrew Carnegie offered $20 USD to the US government to "buy" the Philippines so he can give the Philippines its independence. He was an opponent of US imperialism. In what section in the article can we put this fact? Hong Qi Gong 21:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

No suggestions? Hong Qi Gong 23:33, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

OOPS - that would be $20 Million USD. Not $20 USD. Anyway, if nobody else is interested in adding this bit of information, I'll try to come up with something myself. - Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Self made man?

First he makes $2.50 a week, then $4.00 a week, ok. A couple of paragraphs later he invests $40.000 in a farm. Where did these money come from? Was he really a self made man? Geir Gundersen 12:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Response: He had help in investing his money from his mentor at the pennsylvanian railroad company, Thomas A. Scott. His mother gave her house as an security, and he was able to invest $500 very profitable in a firm called Adams Express in 1855. Later he reinvested his money in sleeping wagons for the prc and bought part of the company making the wagons, which turned out again a very profitable investment. This money was used then to invest in iron and bridge companies, and finally he founded companies for making railwaybridges, rails and locomotives.Joost 99 10:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)