专八人文知识需知的美国名人--安德鲁.卡内基

专八人文知识需知的美国名人--安德鲁.卡内基

　　英语专八人文知识涵盖的知识面较广，考生们需要平时多积累小常识，这样在专八考试中才能游刃有余，新东方在线整理了专八人文知识需知的美国名人系列知识点供考生们参考。

　　在美国，与“汽车大王”福特、“石油大王”洛克菲勒等大财阀的名字列在一起的，还有一个“钢铁大王”他就是安德鲁·卡内基。美国工业史上，写下永难磨灭的一页，他征服钢铁世界，成为美国最大钢铁制造商，衣锦还乡，跃居世界首富。而在功成名就后，他又将几乎全部的财富捐献给社会。他生前捐赠款额之巨大，足以与死后设立诺贝尔奖金的瑞典科学家、实业家诺贝尔相媲美，由此成为美国人心目中的英雄和个人奋斗的楷模。

　　The original self-made man forged America’s industrialmight and became one of the nation’s greatest philanthropists.一个与众不同的白手起家的人把美国打造成了钢铁强国，他也是最伟大的慈善家之一。

　　Andrew Carnegie (25 November 1835 – 11 August 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist,businessman, entrepreneur and a major philanthropist. He was one of the most famous leaders ofindustry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

　　He immigrated to the United States as a child with his parents. His first job in the United States wasas a factory worker in a bobbin factory. Later, he became a bill logger for the owner of thecompany. Soon after he became a messenger boy. Eventually he progressed up the ranks of atelegraph company. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which was later merged withElbert H. Gary's Federal Steel Company and several smaller companies to create U.S. Steel. Withthe fortune he made from business, he later turned to philanthropy and interests in education,founding the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

　　Carnegie gave away most of his money to establish many libraries, schools, and universities inAmerica, the United Kingdom and other countries, as well as a pension fund for former employees.He is often regarded as the second-richest man in history after John D. Rockefeller. Carnegiestarted as a telegrapher and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars,bridges and oil derricks. He built further wealth as a bond salesman raising money for Americanenterprise in Europe.

　　He earned most of his fortune in the steel industry. In the 1870s, he founded the Carnegie SteelCompany, a step which cemented his name as one of the "Captains of Industry". By the 1890s,the company was the largest and most profitable industrial enterprise in the world. Carnegie sold itto J.P. Morgan in 1901, who created U.S. Steel. Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education and scientificresearch. His life has often been referred to as a true "rags to riches" story.

　　1860–1865: The Civil War

　　Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that ofGeorge M Pullman, the inventor of a sleeping car for first-class travel which facilitated businesstravel at distances over 500 miles (800 km). The investment proved a great success and a sourceof profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania'sTom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.

　　In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War incharge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the UnionGovernment's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines into Washington D.C.that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the first brigade of Union troops to reachWashington D.C. Following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised thetransportation of the defeated forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service renderedefficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory. Carnegie laterjoked that he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a scar on his cheek from freeing atrapped telegraph wire.

　　Defeat of the Confederacy required vast supplies of munitions, as well as railroads (and telegraphlines) to deliver the goods. The war demonstrated how integral the industries were to Americansuccess.

　　In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania.In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells onthe property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannon,and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartimeproduction. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill and steel production andcontrol of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the ironindustry before the war.

　　After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegieworked to develop several iron works, eventually forming The Keystone Bridge Works and theUnion Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, heremained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson.He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company andthe rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses,and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point ofnaming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm andliterary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions—functions that Carnegieexploited to his own advantage.

　　Carnegie, circa 1878Carnegie believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than makingmoney.

　　Industrialist

　　1885–1900: Empire of Steel

　　Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron andsteel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovationswas in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel rails for railroad lines. The second was in hisvertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the largestmanufacturer of pig iron, steel rails, and coke in the world, with a capacity to produceapproximately 2,000 tons of pig metal per day. In 1888, Carnegie bought the rival HomesteadSteel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a 425-mile(685 km) long railway, and a line of lake steamships. Carnegie combined his assets and those of hisassociates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.

　　By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded that of the UK, and Carnegie owned a large part of it.Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works, (named for John EdgarThomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), PittsburghBessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker &County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and theScotia ore mines. Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in thelandmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874).This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening ofa new steel market.

　　1901: U.S. Steel

　　In 1901, Carnegie was 66 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises intoconventional joint stock corporations as preparation to this end. John Pierpont Morgan was abanker and perhaps America's most important financial deal maker. He had observed howefficiently Carnegie produced profit. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would cutcosts, lower prices to consumers, produce in greater quantities and raise wages to workers. To thisend, he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers and integrate them intoone company, thereby eliminating duplication and waste. He concluded negotiations on 2 March1901, and formed the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the world witha market capitalization over $1 billion.

　　The buyout, secretly negotiated by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab), was thelargest such industrial takeover in United States history to date. The holdings were incorporated inthe United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Morgan, and Carnegie retired frombusiness. His steel enterprises were bought out at a figure equivalent to twelve times their annualearnings—$480 million (approximately $10.3 billion in 2003 prices- according to Gale VirtualReference Library)—which at the time was the largest ever personal commercial transaction.

　　Carnegie's share of this amounted to $225,639,000, which was paid to Carnegie in the form of5%, 50-year gold bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on 26 February 1901. On2 March, the circular formally filing the organization and capitalization (at $1,400,000,000—4% ofU.S. national wealth at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually completed thecontract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks to the Hudson Trust Company ofHoboken, New Jersey, in trust to Robert A. Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a specialvault was built to house the physical bulk of nearly $230,000,000 worth of bonds. It was said that"...Carnegie never wanted to see or touch these bonds that represented the fruition of his businesscareer. It was as if he feared that if he looked upon them they might vanish like the gossamer goldof the leprechaun. Let them lie safe in a vault in New Jersey, safe from the New York tax assessors,until he was ready to dispose of them..."

　　Death

　　Carnegie died on 11 August 1919 in Lenox, Massachusetts of bronchial pneumonia. He had alreadygiven away $350,695,653 (approximately $4.3 billion, adjusted to 2005 figures) of his wealth. Athis death, his last $30,000,000 was given to foundations, charities, and to pensioners. He wasburied at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in North Tarrytown, New York. The grave site is located onthe Arcadia Hebron plot of land at the corner of Summit Avenue and Dingle Road. Carnegie isburied only a few yards away from union organizer Samuel Gompers, another important figure ofindustry in the Gilded Age.

　　Philosophy

　　Andrew Carnegie Dictum

　　In his final days, Andrew Carnegie suffered from bronchial pneumonia. Before his death on 11August 1919, Mr. Carnegie had donated $350,695,654 for various causes. The 'Andrew CarnegieDictum', speaks a lot about Mr. Carnegie's generous nature. Here is what Andrew Carnegie saidthrough his dictum,

　　To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.

　　To spend the next third making all the money one can.

　　To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.

　　Andrew Carnegie was involved in philanthropist causes, but he kept himself away from religiouscircles. He wanted to be identified by the world as a 'positivist'. He was highly influenced by JohnBright, in public life.

　　Writings

　　Carnegie was a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor issues. In addition to TriumphantDemocracy (1886), and The Gospel of Wealth (1889), he also wrote An American Four-in-hand inBritain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), The Secret of Business isthe Management of Men (1903), James Watt (1905), Problems of Today (1907), and hisposthumously published autobiography Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920).

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