I cannot say what I would have thought of Carnegie if I had known him when he was alive, but I know that living now and looking back at all the things he has done, both good and bad, it is hard to judge. While he may have done a lot of immoral and harmful things in his life, his legacy has lived on as a notable force for good.
While I have heard about the Carnegie Foundation before, I was very unclear about what it did. Turns out the sole purpose of the Carnegie Corporation, founded by Carnegie himself, is to promote peace and education both at home and abroad. And they do this in a multitude of ways, including: monitoring nuclear security, assisting new government in states in a transitional state, building public libraries and setting up post graduate training in Africa, devising innovative design ideas for schools across America, supporting teacher training programs to improve teacher performance, assisting people attempting to gain citizenship and/or integrating into American society, and promoting voter participation. Independent of what Carnegie may have done during his time as a business owner, his foundation clearly is doing much good in the world today.
Another interesting thing I found on the Carnegie Foundation website ( http://carnegie.org/) was the news segment that they are going to soon give away the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy. The news segment mentions that the medal is sometimes called the nobel prize of philanthropy, proving that Carnegie has not lost his influence over the world, even after his death.
In addition to being a very interesting website the Carnegie Corporation also reports on news pertaining to its projects. If you are interested in some of the things mentioned above in the project list for the Foundation then check out some of their news stories here: http://carnegie.org/news/
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ReplyDeleteNice post Emma. While I do believe that the Carnegie Foundation does great things, the money with which it was created was (in my opinion) not all acquired in a morally acceptable way. I think that it does matter where the money from, because the ends do not always justify the means. In the book we are reading in American literature, East of Eden, the deaths of 3 famous men are discussed. After the death of a man who had made a fortune off the backs of his workers but devoted his life to charity when he grew older, the people acted publicly as if they were sad, but in private were grateful he was dead. I am confident this was meant to be Carnegie, and it shows the opinion of everyday Americans of him during his last years. I do not think that his charity should stand unblemished if its funds were derived in a way that made Americans uncomfortable.
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