Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Partnership that Transformed America by Less Standiford - 4 stars

[Leah]

Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Partnership that Transformed America by Less Standiford
319 pages

★★★★

As usual, the subtitles gives you a pretty good idea what this history book is about. It’s about Carnegie (Carnegie Steel Company) and Henry Frick (H. C. Frick & Company) and their partnership that would become the predecessor of U.S. Steel and boy would they become two rich people of the time (and even by today’s standards). If you’re looking for a detailed biography on each individual, you won’t get it here. As the author states, there’s plenty of books on these people and he mostly focuses on Carnegie and Frick’s “friendship” and work together. A good chunk of the book focuses on the deadly Homestead Strike of 1892 and the two men’s roles in it. Short story – Carnegie wanted to please even if it meant hiding the truth and throwing people under the bus and Frick was just a ruthless business man (you may have also heard of his name from the infamous Johnstown Flood) – a partnership made in heaven? Maybe not.

I enjoyed this one. I saw a special on the men that made America and the show glossed over the stories of these men and being the history geek I am – I instantly needed to know more! This is a well written account of Carnegie and Frick’s tumultuous relationship. If you come or live in Pennsylvania, this is all probably fairly well-known local history but I honestly didn’t know much about Carnegie and even less about Frick. Well researched. Easy to read. There are times where the author speculates what someone may have been thinking or saying and I’m not a fan of that but he’s probably not far on his speculations at least.