Ben Franklin

This is the nineth in my series of posts about the five businessmen the History Channel profiled in a terribly inaccurate and un-historical TV miniseries titled The Men Who Built America. I’m writing these posts in response to several comments and e-mails from TV viewers who have expressed interest in a more accurate version of the story. (Click here to see all Al’s columns on the program and its subjects.)

Post #9: Carnegie is Hired by Thomas Scott

Young Andrew Carnegie continued to distinguish himself among the other telegram boys with his work habbits and his ever-increasing skills. The office manager gave him a raise and put him in charge of distributing the messages between the other boys. More promotions and raises would follow.
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The History Channel recently aired a dreadfully inaccurate mini-series called The Men Who Built America. It was billed as a historical account of the careers of businessmen Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan, and Henry Ford; but it was basically all fiction.

I love America’s great rags-to-riches success stories, so I tuned in eagerly to see how the History people would tell them. After each of the four episodes I vented my disappointment by publishing a blog post exposing some of the more glaring inaccuracies. In my post about the last episode I lamented that an honest and accurate account of this era would have been far more entertaining that the fiction History put on the air.
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An Accurate Account of the “Men Who Built America” Part 9

An Accurate Account of “The Men Who Built America” Part 1