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Henry Clay Frick, 1849-1919
Like fellow industrialist Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick grew up in a family of limited means. Yet by age thirty he had made his first million dollars and had positioned himself as a key player in America's industrial development. Believing that steel would be the principal building material of the future, Frick amassed his fortune first by supplying coke-fuel made from coal-to the steel industry and later by partnering with Carnegie to create the world's largest steel company. A cutthroat businessman who opposed labor unions, Frick was aggressive in making his operations more efficient. In 1892, during a violent confrontation with striking steelworkers in Homestead, Pennsylvania, he did not hesitate to call in guards from the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the state militia to break the union's resolve. This double portrait shows the industrialist with his daughter Helen.
Edmund C. Tarbell, c 1910 |