Andrew Carnegie

ulacrouAndrew Carnegie started work at an early age as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill, later as a telegraph clerk and operator with the Atlantic and Ohio Company. He was noted as one of the first operators to read telegraphic signals by sound.

His ability as a worker was noted by Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who employed him as a secretary starting in 1853. In 1859, when Scott became vice-president of the company, he made Carnegie superintendent of the western division of the line. In this position, Carnegie made several improvements to the service. When the American Civil War opened in 1861, he accompanied Scott, then Assistant United States Secretary of War, to the front.

While in this position he met also George Pullman, inventor of the sleeping car. Carnegie immediately recognized the great merit of the invention and readily joined in the effort for its adoption. The first sources of the enormous wealth he subsequently attained were his introduction of sleeping cars for railways, and his purchase in 1864 of Storey Farm on Oil Creek, in Venango County, Pennsylvania, which cost $40,000, and yielded in one year over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and where the oil well s secured a large profit.

Carnegie was subsequently associated with others in establishing a steel rolling mill .
In the late 1880s Carnegie Steel was the largest manufacturer of pig-iron , steel-rails and coke in the world and can produce 2,000 tons of pig-metal a day. In 1888 he bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a railway 425 miles long, and a line of lake steamships. An agglutination of the assets of him and his associates occurred in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.



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John Wanamaker


John Wanamaker was a United States businessman, considered the father of the department store and modern advertising.

He opened his first store in 1861, called "Oak Hall" at Sixth and High Streets in Philadelphia, which grew substantially based on his revolutionary new principals: "One price and goods returnable". In 1869, he opened his second store at 818 Chestnut Street. Due to his increased reputation, he renamed the company John Wanamaker & Co. In 1875 he purchased an abandoned railroad depot and converted it into a large store, called John Wanamaker & Co. "The Grand Depot". Wanamaker's is generally considered the first department store.

He opened his first New York store in New York City in 1896 and continued to expand his business abroad with the European Houses of Wanamaker in London and Paris.

A larger store in Philadelphia was then designed by famous architect Daniel H. Burnham, and the 12-story granite "Wanamaker Building" was completed in 1910 encompassing an entire block at the corner of Thirteenth and Market Streets across from Philadelphia's City Hall. The new store was dedicated by US President Howard Taft, and housed the world's largest instrument, the Wanamaker Organ, and the 2,500-pound bronze "Wanamaker Eagle" in the store's Grand Court. This became a famous meeting place for Philadelphians simply saying, "Meet me at the Eagle." The Wanamaker building and the Grand Court became a Philadelphia institution. Wanamaker was an innovator, a merchandising and advertising genius, modest and had an enduring reputation for honesty. In 1889 Wanamaker began the First Penny Savings Bank in order to encourage thrift.




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William Henry Vanderbilt ( May 8 1821 – December 8 1885 ) was a businessman and a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family. He inherited nearly $100 million from his father Cornelius Vanderbilt and had increased it to about $200 million at his death less than nine years later.

His father carefully oversaw his business training, at age 18 starting him out as a clerk in a New York banking house. After joining the executive of the Staten Island railway, he was made its president in 1862 then three years later he was appointed vice-president of the Hudson River railway. In 1869, he was made vice-president of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company , becoming its president in 1877. As well, he took over from his father as president of New York Central Railroad , the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway , the Canada Southern Railway , and the Michigan Central Railroad .

He had worked with his father and following his death, actively expanded the family's railroad empire. In 1883, his elder sons assumed key positions. William Henry Vanderbilt was involved in a number of philanthropic causes including the YMCA, funding to help establish the Metropolitan Opera and an endowment for the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. In 1880, he provided the money for Vanderbilt University to construct the Wesley Hall building for use as the Biblical Department and library and included 160 dormitory rooms for students and professors, lecture halls, as well as a cafeteria.



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