Economy vs. Ethics

This lesson was about Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, two leaders in the production of steel and oil. Though they were successful businessmen, their practices were questionable. Many wondered whether they were actually robber barons. The essential question for this lesson was: "How did the actions of monopolistic leaders, such as Carnegie and Rockefeller, affect the common worker?"

"Forty-Millionaire Carnegie in his Great Double Role"

The Saturday Globe, 9 July 1892; David P. Damares

This lesson was done differently from previous lessons. We as a class were given the materials to learn and had to come up with an essential question to answer in this blog post ourselves. It was challenging and took teamwork and good communication, but we were able to do it. We split into groups and each group got a category to pay the most attention to, since we are going to use notes from these last few lessons to create the questions for our final exam. The categories were main ideas, key people, key terms, and important events. My group had main ideas. Then we were given some short ABC-CLIO videos, which we watched as a class and took notes on in a google doc that was shared with everyone. Next we read short biographies on John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. Then we watched a video on Carnegie's homestead strike. Finally we read through a short lesson containing primary and secondary sources on the men's contributions and hindrances to society or, more importantly, to their workers.

With these resources, we were able to discover how Carnegie and Rockefeller affected their workers' lives. These men were considered "robber barons": they helped the economy, but they were unfair. Rockefeller, for example, bought out all of his competition so he could dominate the oil field. Carnegie took advantage of the depression to get products for low prices. While the men were known for their philanthropy, they were disliked for their practices. They affected their workers through their monopolies because they created shifts in power and took advantage.