Andrew Carnegie's legacy

Andrew Carnegie's legacy is steeped in ruthlessness

When I was a young adult in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Andrew
Carnegie built his wealth (Letters, 12 April), it was hard to walk a
block without something attesting to the man's legacy: Carnegie Mellon
University, Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural
History, Carnegie Science Center, and buses to Carnegie (an entire
borough). Carnegie libraries dotted every small town in the area.

Carnegie made his fortune by ruthlessly defending the systems that
kept extreme poverty rampant during the era - by exposing his workers
to extreme working conditions with little rest and even less pay. He
resorted to violence to keep them from securing protections such as
safety policies, healthy working hours and fair wages. Men, women and
children were injured or died during the Homestead strike. The money
that carved institutions in his name came from anything other than
peace.

It's easy to admire the infrastructure that he secured before he died,
saving him from his eventual anonymity in just a few centuries more.
Please don't mistake his contributions as differing from those of
modern centibillionaires - they are both extravagant attempts to leave
a legacy in whatever the trend of the era may be.

Michelle Bufton
Ludlow, Shropshire

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/17/andrew-carnegie-legacy-is-steeped-in-ruthlessness