NOVEMBER 25 — 1753 Happy birthday American Revolution spy Robert Townsend; 1835 Happy birthday Andrew Carnegie; 1950 great Appalachian Storm; 1874 Greenback Party convenes in Indiana
NOVEMBER 25
1835 – Happy birthday Scottish-American industrialist, business magnate, and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
From a town called Dunfermline in Scotland, Andrew’s father was a handloom weaver facing a bad economy. The Carnegies immigrated to America in 1848, settling in Alleghany, Pennsylvania. A young 13 year old Andrew went to work right away in the American cotton fields and learned his reading and writing skills by attending school at night. He began working directly for the big boss man Thomas Scott at the Pennsylvania Railroad Company while still a teenager. Andrew’s thirst for railroad and business knowledge never seemed to end, and Scott was his perfect mentor. By 1959, it would be Andrew who would become the big boss man of Penn Rail.
He began investing in the Sleeping Car Company, which is just that. It’s a train that features beds you can sleep comfortably in for overnight travel. He also began investing in all the top railroad markets, and started travelling to Europe on a regular basis to sell railroad securities. By the time he was 30, Andrew Carnegie was earning over $50G a year, back in the 1860s. I don’t know too many 30 year olds today that make that much, never mind what its proportionate value would be these days. Carnegie was just getting warmed up.
He invested into oil and bridges, earning a fortune in the Keystone Bridge Company. Sometime around 1872 he got in the steel business, coming up with the Carnegie Steel Company, and that set Andrew Carnegie over the top for good. His innovation led to changes in production that made the steel making process more resourceful, using a newer German technology known commonly as open-hearth furnace to melt steel more efficiently. Carnegie not only had the process, but also owned the fields that produced the raw materials, as well as ships and other transportation methods used to carry it to his mills. He owned it all. It is how he got on the very elite list of American Builders, and by 1889 Pittsburgh Carnegie Steel was the largest steel company on planet Earth.
In 1892, salaries were cut for the workers, and there was a strike while Andrew was away at the time. This became known as the Homestead Strike of 1892, which I cover in detail on another ep. In June 1889, he wrote a book called “Wealth”, which in 1900 would be published with the name The Gospel of Wealth in which he writes, any man who is wealthy has a duty to use any extra leftovers for “the improvement of mankind. Any man who dies rich, dies disgraced. “ Tough talk, right? Especially for a guy who by now was richer than John D. Rockefeller himself!
Well, my friends, Andrew were a true philanthropist. He consolidated all of his companies into the United States Steel Corporation and in 1901, 65-year old ready for retirement Andrew sold it to JP Morgan for around $250M, a transaction that some economists believe violated anti-trust laws. Morgan would also purchase the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company and manipulate the Heinz banks to cause the Crash of 1907. But that’s a story for another day. ANYWAY! Carnegie lived up to his word, and spent his retirement giving 90% of his extra cash away to world peace, education, scientific research, and because he loved to read so much, libraries. Almost 3,000 libraries in fact were built from his donations.
Well over a hundred years later he still has universities in Pennsylvania and Scotland. Andrew Carnegie, many consider the beacon of capitalism. Understand the market, hustle your rear end off, learn from your mistakes, become the absolute best, then give what you can back to the community. Like a capitalist boss! Happy birthday Andrew!
1876 – The US Army retaliates for the Little Bighorn Massacre. When news of the defeat of Custer at little Big Horn hit the east coast, Americans were livid and demanded military action against the Native Americans. Colonel Ranald MacKenzie, a notorious Indian killer, was send by the US along with 1100 men to drive out the Cheyenne at the Red Fork of the Powder River in central Wyoming. On the morning of November 25, after the Cheyenne were celebrating a victory the previous night over the Shoshone, when Mackenzie and crew raided the area, completely catching Chief Dull Knife off guard. The Cheyenne fled, most of them leaving their clothes and buffalo robes behind. The Cheyenne ran upwards to high point with the intention of hiding the women and children in a nearby canyon.
Back at the camp, Mackenzie allegedly found artifacts that the Cheyenne and Sioux stole during the battle of Little Big Horn and became enraged, burning everything down. Including those buffalo robes, which was very unfortunate for the natives, especially the children and older people, since at night in Wyoming temperatures can get down to 30 below around that time of year? Many perished, and the survivors made it to Crazy Horse’s band at Lakota. It was a futile effort anyway; Crazy Horse would talk everyone into surrendering to US authorities.
1958 – Charles F Kettering who invented the ignition starter, died at 82. He also led the advancement of lightweight two stroke diesel engines which revolutionized the heavy equipment industry. 1715 – First English patent granted to an American, for processing corn. No I didn’t catch his name, sorry.
1950 – Great Appalachian Storm
…of November 1950, as some wold call the storm of the century, slammed into the New England and affected a total of 22 US states. Throughout New England as well as parts of Pennsylvania, Oho, = and West Virginia1 Million people lost power, travel was impossible for several weeks. New York City recorded94-MPH winds. In some parts of New Hampshire winds blew up to 160 MPH. In all, 353 were killed, and caused over 60M in 1950 dollars.
1783 – Last British troops leave New York;
…its last military position. Almost three months after the treaty of Paris was signed, formally ending the American Revolution the British leave the area they had occupied since the beginning of the revolution. New York City would be America’s first capital before headquarters was moved to Philadelphia. Also in New York City, on this day in 1817 the first recorded sword swallower in America performs. Sword swallowing has been around in India since at least 2000BC. Also in New York 1834, Delmonico’s; one of New York’s finest restaurants, had a special on the day only. You could get a steak, bowl of soup, coffee and half a pie for 12 cents. While supplies last.
1874 – The first Greenback party convenes in Indiana.
During the civil War, $450M worth of paper money called Greenbacks was printed as legal tender not backed by specie, or gold and silver reserves. In 1873, president Ulysses Grant took America off the silver standard, leaving gold as the lone financial backing. This did not help the farmers and debtors in the west and the south, who didn’t have access to gold, and wanted more Greenbacks pumped into the economy to create an inflation that could pay off debts made in times of high prices.
Depending on who you ask, conservative Democrats supported the idea of Greenbacks, but wealthy creditors within the Republican party wanted the greenback eliminated from currency altogether. It was on this day in 1874 that an Independent Party of Greenbacks met in Indiana to call for a national convention. The Greenback party chose Peter Cooper from new York to represent the party. The Resumption Act of 1875 allowed the treasury to buy back ¼ of the Greenbacks in circulation from the general public and pay for them in gold at its current value at the time. I’ll get to that another. In the election of 1876, Cooper would gain a total of 0.9% of the popular vote. Rutherford Hays of the Republican party would win the election of 1876.
Two years later, the party realigned its interests with unions, who were having their share of unrelated problems, as well as women’s suffrage movements and increasing income taxes, and became the Greenback-Labor party, and was able to get 14 members of the Greenback party elected into Congress. Now the Greenbacks were on a roll. By 1880, James Weaver of Iowa, who was determined to increase the nation’s money supply and control big business, ran twice but lost, though his 3.3% for a third party in any presidential election was impressive.
By 1880, the economy began to stabilize somewhat, the Resumption Act had been a success, the Bland-Allison Act, which brought silver back into legal coinage, an loss in the 1880 presidential election from candidate Benjamin Butler with 1.7%, the Greenback party had become obsolete.
2007 AZ QB Kurt Warner threw for 484 yards and the Cardinals still lost to the 49ers. Speaking of the 9ers, they started out the 1990 season 10-0. So did the NY Giants. Both teams winning streak, ended on this day.