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klutzyclocks's review against another edition
3.0
Well researched and intriguing story between 2 powerful men, but lacks a certain lasting punch.
cassafrassandfries's review against another edition
4.0
This book chronicles the lives, partnership, and then bitter separation of capitalist magnates Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. The king of steel and the king of Coke, respectively. This is a slower read, best enjoyed by a history lover. It had some rich history of the steel industry, as well as Pittsburgh history. It highlights some of the greatest labor struggles in our young nation, and delivers a narrative on how a "rags to riches" story is wrought with complexities. It reminds us that people aren't all good, or all bad, but are layered human beings who sometimes do good and sometimes do bad.
I found myself shockingly emotional as I read the last few pages of this. The author finds a lovely personal connection to these captains of industry, and reminds us that they were both inherently flawed humans. And yet, humans who had god-like impact on the region, and the world. I think Standiford does a beautiful job of keeping the story interesting, and tells a detail-rich narrative without getting too far in the weeds (difficult to do with this kind of subject matter). It was slow-going at first but was a quick read once I was locked in to the lives and impact of these two giants.
I found myself shockingly emotional as I read the last few pages of this. The author finds a lovely personal connection to these captains of industry, and reminds us that they were both inherently flawed humans. And yet, humans who had god-like impact on the region, and the world. I think Standiford does a beautiful job of keeping the story interesting, and tells a detail-rich narrative without getting too far in the weeds (difficult to do with this kind of subject matter). It was slow-going at first but was a quick read once I was locked in to the lives and impact of these two giants.
ksundgren's review against another edition
5.0
An incredible read. I was totally absorbed every time I picked up the book.
wesleyboy's review against another edition
5.0
Most of the book outlines the Homestead strike and then uses the fallout from that event to frame the rivalry of Frick and Carnegie. Still a great read, but the description makes it sound like it was about more than that one event.
lakecake's review against another edition
4.0
Really concise account of Carnegie's rise in the business world, the making of steel/iron, the workingman's conditions, and the strike at Homestead works in Pittsburgh. I didn't know ANY of this history, besides knowing Carnegie's name, so this was really insightful and interesting.
knenigans's review against another edition
4.0
If you happen to have gone to school for metallurgical engineering the first third of this book can be skipped.
Otherwise, this is a very straightforward breakdown of an American tragedy and the greed of two men who later made their petty feud everyone else's problem.
Otherwise, this is a very straightforward breakdown of an American tragedy and the greed of two men who later made their petty feud everyone else's problem.
stacyculler's review against another edition
5.0
Conflicted.
That is how I feel after reading this book. I am a Pittsburgh girl, a Union member’s daughter, and an avid reader with an intense love of a public library.
I am the daughter of a proud Union man. My dad was a laborer in Local 833 in New Brighton, PA, from the late 70’s, when my grandfather, Karl Klear, also a Union man, snuck my dad onto a job, forcing the hall to give him a Union card. My Dad stayed in the Union until his retirement.
The jobs that my Dad secured through the Union were not always easy...he was up at the crack of dawn everyday. He did not have sick days or paid vacation. He worked as a janitor, participated in building the nuclear reactor (Beaver Valley #2) at the Shippingport Atomic Power Plant, endured periods of unemployment, and worked asbestos abatement. He often worked outside in the cold and the heat. On any given day, he could be given a broom, a jackhammer, or a shovel as the tools of the trade. Often when he began a new job, he would lose 20 lbs almost immediately due to the heat or intensity of the work.
My dad would proudly announce that he was “Union, Yes!” Although he possessed only a high school diploma, and graduated high school at a time when the local steel mills were closing, we always knew that we had a better standard of living than many other families in our county, and it was made known to us that this was because of the Union. My Dad’s hourly wages were often double of those of his best friend, for similar work, because he was employed through the Union. Our family had health insurance because of the Union. We enjoyed an annual day trip with our family to a local amusement park every summer complete with lunch and free drinks because of the Union. Every December, we had a movie day with Santa Claus, where we would be gifted a stocking full of candy, a gigantic apple and orange and a 1 lb bag of M&M’s, hosted by the Union. My Dad was appreciative of his life insurance policy, and his pension, provided by the Union. My dad was proud to own his home, and our family usually had at least two cars (one was always a beater car that my dad drove to work). We were far from wealthy, and I am sure that some times were tough but my mom, brother and I always had enough.
I am also the beneficiary of the community benefits that were provided by the generosity and philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie. There was a Carnegie library within reasonable walking distance of my childhood home. My parents did not have the budget to purchase enough books to keep up with my voracious childhood reading appetite, but they took me to the library, where I burned up the card catalog and worked my way through all the Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume books, all of the Boxcar children series. We would visit the library book trade in the winter, bringing home huge bags of paperbacks which we would pass around between my mother and I. My Dad researched our family tree in the genealogy section that was housed on the second floor of the library. As a teen in the 80’s, I moved on to the “grown up” section of the library. Many of the books were somewhat dated, so I got an education in the funkiness of the 70’s through the poetry of Rod McKuen and Nikki Giovanni. I borrowed records and books, often walking home two miles with a ridiculously heavy bag! I loved the musty smell and the big wide steps of the old building, and the creaky wooden floors. I also was convinced that a dinosaur skeleton was behind a locked door in the basement labeled “museum,” but I think this was childhood fantasy.
As a parent, my kids were frequent visitors to the Carnegie Science center, and we also made trips to the Carnegie Museum of Natural history. My husband and I have been to the Carnegie museum of Art also.
Nearly every cultural amenity in our area is touched by Carnegie’s money...either directly, or because it is associated with a contemporary who worked with Carnegie: Frick, Mellon, Phipps...these names are on everything in our city. We have visited the Frick gallery in Pittsburgh, and Frick Park, and Phipps conservatory.
So my mental association with Carnegie was industry, success, philanthropy. I knew of Frick through stories from my husband’s grandfather, Robert Hebner. He told me stories about his father, who was disabled after work in the coal mines. This left Pap Hebner, as a young boy, in a position of caring for his “invalid” father. Pap Hebner impressed upon me that Frick was a bad man in the eyes of the average coal miner.
So I came to this story expecting Frick to be the bad guy, and Carnegie to be the successful Santa Claus.
I was fascinated to read about all of those well known Pittsburgh names in detail, who were really just names on buildings to me up until this point. I had heard of the Johnstown flood, but never realized the horror of the event until reading this book. I was impressed by the rags-to-riches story of Carnegie, his scrappiness, inventiveness, drive and innovation.
But then the labor relations...the author describes the working conditions, events, and dirty dealings leading up to and including the Homestead strikes in such vivid detail. In my mind, these mill workers have the faces of my Dad’s Union buddies, my friend’s dads who were dejected and saddened when the mills shut down in the 1980’s and their livelihood was taken from them. The Slovak scabs that were brought in are the ancestors of my customers at the GCU. So it seems personal that these two men, already in control of so much wealth, blocked so many hard working men from obtaining a better standard of living by unionizing.
I wanted to blame it all on Frick, the way that Carnegie tried to, and let old Andy keep his halo. But really, it is pretty transparent that Carnegie removed himself from the situation and hid in his mansion overseas while leaving Frick to take all of the responsibility and all of the blame. Carnegie never really acknowledges his part in this debacle, other than to say it haunts him.
In the end I am left with what I already know: only one person in the world was ever 100 percent good, and that is Jesus Christ. The rest of us are a mixed bag of our sins and our good deeds, and Carnegie is no exception. He allowed Frick to harm the workforce on which they built their fortunes, both in the immediate acts of the Homestead strikes, and in the ways that he robbed the workers in the name of cost cutting.
This book was well written, very interesting and very detailed. I recommend it for many reasons.
That is how I feel after reading this book. I am a Pittsburgh girl, a Union member’s daughter, and an avid reader with an intense love of a public library.
I am the daughter of a proud Union man. My dad was a laborer in Local 833 in New Brighton, PA, from the late 70’s, when my grandfather, Karl Klear, also a Union man, snuck my dad onto a job, forcing the hall to give him a Union card. My Dad stayed in the Union until his retirement.
The jobs that my Dad secured through the Union were not always easy...he was up at the crack of dawn everyday. He did not have sick days or paid vacation. He worked as a janitor, participated in building the nuclear reactor (Beaver Valley #2) at the Shippingport Atomic Power Plant, endured periods of unemployment, and worked asbestos abatement. He often worked outside in the cold and the heat. On any given day, he could be given a broom, a jackhammer, or a shovel as the tools of the trade. Often when he began a new job, he would lose 20 lbs almost immediately due to the heat or intensity of the work.
My dad would proudly announce that he was “Union, Yes!” Although he possessed only a high school diploma, and graduated high school at a time when the local steel mills were closing, we always knew that we had a better standard of living than many other families in our county, and it was made known to us that this was because of the Union. My Dad’s hourly wages were often double of those of his best friend, for similar work, because he was employed through the Union. Our family had health insurance because of the Union. We enjoyed an annual day trip with our family to a local amusement park every summer complete with lunch and free drinks because of the Union. Every December, we had a movie day with Santa Claus, where we would be gifted a stocking full of candy, a gigantic apple and orange and a 1 lb bag of M&M’s, hosted by the Union. My Dad was appreciative of his life insurance policy, and his pension, provided by the Union. My dad was proud to own his home, and our family usually had at least two cars (one was always a beater car that my dad drove to work). We were far from wealthy, and I am sure that some times were tough but my mom, brother and I always had enough.
I am also the beneficiary of the community benefits that were provided by the generosity and philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie. There was a Carnegie library within reasonable walking distance of my childhood home. My parents did not have the budget to purchase enough books to keep up with my voracious childhood reading appetite, but they took me to the library, where I burned up the card catalog and worked my way through all the Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume books, all of the Boxcar children series. We would visit the library book trade in the winter, bringing home huge bags of paperbacks which we would pass around between my mother and I. My Dad researched our family tree in the genealogy section that was housed on the second floor of the library. As a teen in the 80’s, I moved on to the “grown up” section of the library. Many of the books were somewhat dated, so I got an education in the funkiness of the 70’s through the poetry of Rod McKuen and Nikki Giovanni. I borrowed records and books, often walking home two miles with a ridiculously heavy bag! I loved the musty smell and the big wide steps of the old building, and the creaky wooden floors. I also was convinced that a dinosaur skeleton was behind a locked door in the basement labeled “museum,” but I think this was childhood fantasy.
As a parent, my kids were frequent visitors to the Carnegie Science center, and we also made trips to the Carnegie Museum of Natural history. My husband and I have been to the Carnegie museum of Art also.
Nearly every cultural amenity in our area is touched by Carnegie’s money...either directly, or because it is associated with a contemporary who worked with Carnegie: Frick, Mellon, Phipps...these names are on everything in our city. We have visited the Frick gallery in Pittsburgh, and Frick Park, and Phipps conservatory.
So my mental association with Carnegie was industry, success, philanthropy. I knew of Frick through stories from my husband’s grandfather, Robert Hebner. He told me stories about his father, who was disabled after work in the coal mines. This left Pap Hebner, as a young boy, in a position of caring for his “invalid” father. Pap Hebner impressed upon me that Frick was a bad man in the eyes of the average coal miner.
So I came to this story expecting Frick to be the bad guy, and Carnegie to be the successful Santa Claus.
I was fascinated to read about all of those well known Pittsburgh names in detail, who were really just names on buildings to me up until this point. I had heard of the Johnstown flood, but never realized the horror of the event until reading this book. I was impressed by the rags-to-riches story of Carnegie, his scrappiness, inventiveness, drive and innovation.
But then the labor relations...the author describes the working conditions, events, and dirty dealings leading up to and including the Homestead strikes in such vivid detail. In my mind, these mill workers have the faces of my Dad’s Union buddies, my friend’s dads who were dejected and saddened when the mills shut down in the 1980’s and their livelihood was taken from them. The Slovak scabs that were brought in are the ancestors of my customers at the GCU. So it seems personal that these two men, already in control of so much wealth, blocked so many hard working men from obtaining a better standard of living by unionizing.
I wanted to blame it all on Frick, the way that Carnegie tried to, and let old Andy keep his halo. But really, it is pretty transparent that Carnegie removed himself from the situation and hid in his mansion overseas while leaving Frick to take all of the responsibility and all of the blame. Carnegie never really acknowledges his part in this debacle, other than to say it haunts him.
In the end I am left with what I already know: only one person in the world was ever 100 percent good, and that is Jesus Christ. The rest of us are a mixed bag of our sins and our good deeds, and Carnegie is no exception. He allowed Frick to harm the workforce on which they built their fortunes, both in the immediate acts of the Homestead strikes, and in the ways that he robbed the workers in the name of cost cutting.
This book was well written, very interesting and very detailed. I recommend it for many reasons.