Paige Kramer

Harkins
U.S. History Hon. (3)
6 October 2014
The Men Who Built America
In The Men Who Built America documentary, I found myself rooting for Cornelius
Vanderbilt, and myself rooting against Andrew Carnegie. The Commador, Vanderbilt, built his
empire from the ground. His perseverance throughout his career and lifetime made him one of
the richest men in America. His legacy will be remembered for centuries to come. Carnegie, his
legacy is steel, he built his empire by cheating and using terrible people to do dirty work.
Cornelius Vanderbilt gave up everything for the idea of infrastructure, and to build his
railroad system. When his competitors threatened to run him out of business, he closed the only
way into Manhattan, the Albany Bridge. He did this to show that he had the upper hand, and to
assert his dominance over the railroads. When he gained more money, he bought out all the other
railroads and became the King of Railroads. In New York, he built Grand Central Station,
which is still a huge railroad station for the U.S.. Cornelius Vanderbilt created the backbone of
railroads today, and is still a huge influence for all business men and women in modern times.
Andrew Carnegie became an assistant for Tom Scott at twelve years old, and then
became manager of that job. He was given the opportunity to build a bridge over the Mississippi
River. He thought of the idea to build it out of steel. Steel was very expensive and very strong.
He completed the bridge out of steel, and now steel is in high-demand all over the country.
Carnegie built steel mills and started to produce steel in large quantities. The steel mills had
horrible working conditions and he made the workers work for 12-18 hours a day. When the
steel workers went on strike because of this, Carnegie hired Henry Frick. Frick was hired to do

Carnegies dirty work. Frick called a personal police force to force the steel workers back to
work. The police attacked the workers, and Frick was blamed for the massacre. Carnegie claimed
to have nothing to do with the massacre. Frick was attacked because of the massacre, but lived.
Carnegie used Frick to do his dirty work, and was lucky enough to get away with not having any
consequences.
Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie both built the backbone of todays economy
and ideas of success in America. Although, some methods of getting to the top of the economy
and beating out all other competition are not the best and most ethical, they do work and made
them get to the top. These men have influenced all ideas in the business world and created the
legacies people still look up to today.