HENRY CLAY FRICK Titan Of Industry, Finance, Philanthropy & The Arts
As the story goes, sitting in his mansion on New York’s Upper East Side, industrialist and entrepreneur Henry Clay Frick scanned the letter which had just been hand-delivered. Sent by his former business partner and friend, and fellow titan of the industrial age, Andrew Carnegie, the correspondence sent to the 69-year-old Frick was one of hindsight and regret with the specific goal of reconciliation. It spoke of the chance to make amends with one another before they reached the end of their lives. It was genuine, sincere and a legitimate attempt to end the enmities that had existed between these two giants for years.
And Frick wasn’t interested. He was at the twilight of his life, and he could look back with enormous satisfaction on his career and empire. While Carnegie had been an important ally, Frick had proved the more courageous of the two, and, some could argue, the better man of business. Despite his relatively humble origins, and dropping out of college, he became a millionaire by the age of 30. According to Forbes, in 1918,
