Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, union-buster, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel manufacturing concern. He also financed the construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Company. He later built the historic neoclassical Frick Mansion, and upon his death donated his extensive collection of old master paintings and fine furniture to create the celebrated Frick Collection and art museum. His vehement opposition to unions also caused violent conflict, most notably in the Homestead Strike.
About Henry Clay Frick in brief
Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, union-buster, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel manufacturing concern. He also financed the construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Company. He later built the historic neoclassical Frick Mansion, and upon his death donated his extensive collection of old master paintings and fine furniture to create the celebrated Frick Collection and art museum. He was also in large part responsible for the alterations to the South Fork Dam that caused its failure, leading to the catastrophic Johnstown Flood. His vehement opposition to unions also caused violent conflict, most notably in the Homestead Strike. The club members made inadequate repairs to what was at that time the world’s largest earthen dam, behind which formed a private lake called Lake Conemaugh more than 20 miles from the city of Johnstown. A screen was placed across the club to prevent fish from escaping from the dam in 1889, resulting in the Johnstown flood. Poor maintenance and repairs and repairs by the club members fatally lowered the dam by more than 3 feet in 1885, causing it to give way on May 31, 1889. In 1881, Frick met Andrew Carnegie in New York City while the Fricks were on their honeymoon. This introduction would lead to an eventual partnership between H. C.
Frick and Carnegie Steel and, eventually, to United States Steel. Despite the contributions Frick had made towards Andrew Carnegie’s fortune, Carnegie disregarded him in many executive decisions including finances including finances. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania, and included among their number Frick’s best friend, Andrew Mellon, his attorneys Philander Knox and James Hay Reed. Some of the brick and stone structures are still visible in both Fayette and Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The charter members of the Southfork Fishing and Hunting Club were Benjamin Ruff; T. H. Sweat, Charles J. Clarke, Thomas Clark, Walter F. Fundenberg, Howard Hartley, Henry C. Yeager, J. B. White, and A. V. Holmes. In 1880, by 1880, Frik bought out the partnership of the Frick Coke Company, which employed 1,000 workers and controlled 80 percent of the coal output in Pennsylvania, operating coal mines in West moreland and Fayette counties, where he also operated banks of beehive coke ovens. The company was renamed H. C. Frick & Company, and Frick controlled the majority of the coke output in the state. By 1880, the company was called H C. Frick & Company and employed more than 2,000 people. The Frick Coke Company was one of the largest coke manufacturers in the world.
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