The Statistical Endeavors of Andrew Carnegie

Abstract

American steel tycoon and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was a member of the American Statistical Association from 1892 until his death. He learned cost accounting at the Pennsylvania Railroad, and later adapted its data-driven approach to managing his steel business. He successfully outperformed competitors by introducing a detailed data collection program within his steel mills, and using the resulting information for personnel management, marketing, and capital investment decisions. Carnegie was also a consumer of US census data, using it extensively in his polemical book Triumphant Democracy to argue in favor of the US political and economic arrangements, as opposed to those of old Europe; and for making decisions on donating public libraries and church organs across the world. However, Carnegie lacked a modern understanding of statistical variation. The statistics profession has advanced, and narrowed, since Carnegie's time, and I argue that Carnegie's modern counterparts in business would not be welcome in the American Statistical Association today.