Background
Henry Clay Frick was born in West Overton, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in the United States on December 19, 1849.
Financier Industrialist patron union-buster
Henry Clay Frick was born in West Overton, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in the United States on December 19, 1849.
Although Henry Clay Frick received little formal education, he early showed an aptitude for business and at 19 became bookkeeper for his grandfather's businesses.
Meanwhile Andrew Carnegie, aware of Frick's abilities as financier and industrial manager and anxious to have a continuing supply of coke for his great steel company, took Frick in as a partner in 1882 and allowed him to purchase an 11 percent stock interest.
At this time the firm consisted of five or six mills and furnaces around Pittsburgh.
Frick thenintroduced centralized management procedures which greatly increased the firm's efficiency.
In 1892 occurred the Homestead strike, one of the most bitter labor conflicts of the decade; it cast a shadow over the rest of Frick's career, cooled his relationship with Carnegie, and almost cost
Frick recruited 300 strikebreakers through the Pinkerton Detective Agency, bringing them in armed barges down the Monongahela River.
When the strikebreakers attempted to land, a day-long battle ensued.
Despite his wounds and loss of blood, Frick finished his day's work. During the late 18906 the company prospered greatly.
Between 1889 and 1899 annual production of steel rose from 332, 111 to 2, 663, 412 tons, and profits advanced from about $2 million to $40 million in 1900.
Although the company was extremely prosperous, its existence as a partnership was terminated in 1899 largely as a result of a quarrel between Frick and Carnegie.
When Carnegie, acting on what he believed to be a binding agreement with Frick, set a price for coke from the Frick Coke Company that was considerably below the market price, Frick suspended deliveries, and the Carnegie Company faced a shutdown.
Carnegie, as majority stockholder in both the coke and steel companies, forced Frick's resignation from both firms.
By the terms of the "ironclad" partnership agreement of 1887 the Carnegie Company was obligated to purchase Frick's stock upon his resignation, but Carnegie refused to pay more than the valuation set by the "ironclad, " although by 1899 the stock was worth three times that figure.
Frick sued in equity to have the agreement set aside.
Because of Frick's damaging revelations of the company's apparently exorbitant profits, Carnegie settled the suit by allowing the company to be incorporated at a figure which gave a value of $15 million to Frick's stock.
Both men retired from management, and the two never spoke to each other again.
A large, handsome man with a powerful physique, Frick was hardworking, quiet, and reserved—the antithesis of the ebullient Andrew Carnegie.
Henry Clay Frick married Adelaide Howard Childs of Pittsburgh on December 15, 1881. They had four children.