Henry Clay Frick

• Born: December 19, 1849
• Birthplace: West Overton, Pennsylvania
• Died: December 2, 1919
• Place of death: New York, New York

American industrialist, entrepreneur, and art patron

Frick embodied the American Gilded Age robber baron in the means he employed to amass his fortune. This image, however, contrasts with the primary use of his wealth, which was collecting art and providing for the museum that displays his collection.

Sources of wealth: Steel; investments

Bequeathal of wealth: Children; museum; educational institution; charity

Early Life

Henry Clay Frick was born in 1849 in West Overton, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, where he was also raised. The second of six children of Elizabeth Overholt and John Frick, Frick was named in honor of Henry Clay, the U.S. senator from Kentucky and the leader of the Whig Party. Described as a frail child, Frick was prone to bouts of “inflammatory rheumatism,” which left him in a weakened state for extended periods of time.

While considered an average student, Frick excelled in mathematics. For a brief period in 1866, he attended Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio. His interest, though, was in obtaining the knowledge that would help him attain his childhood dream of being a millionaire before he died. He was inspired by his grandfather, Abraham Overholt, who owned a distillery and was one of the richest men in Westmoreland County.

First Ventures

While Frick’s grandfather was a wealthy man, his immediate family was not. The opportunities available to Frick paid rather modestly, but he was a hard worker, which caught the eye of his grandfather, who offered him a better paying job as a bookkeeper in the distillery. It was not long, however, before his grandfather died, and Frick was once again looking for a job.

He found a new one with a cousin, Abraham Tintsman, who owned coal fields southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was in the business of producing coke, which is made by baking coal to remove impurities and is used in the production of steel. Only a marginally profitable business at the time, Frick got in on the ground floor of the growing steel industry in the Pittsburgh area. Initially borrowing from his family, who had inherited money from his grandfather, Frick became a partner in Tintsman’s business in 1871. Frick’s determination and business acumen expanded the business and his share of it.

The recession of 1873 devastated the steel industry, and, in turn, the coke business. However, through his vigilance in keeping costs low and his ties to lenders, such as Thomas Mellon, Frick was able to expand his business during these difficult times and emerge from them with about 25 percent of the nation’s coke-producing capacity and much of the best coal. By his thirtieth birthday in 1879, Frick had attained his childhood dream and was worth $1 million.

Mature Wealth

With the expansion of the steel industry in the Pittsburgh area, Frick’s coke business continued to grow. Given coke’s importance in the production of steel, it seemed natural that the two industries would forge closer ties. Frick’s largest buyer was Andrew Carnegie’s growing steel empire. In 1882, Frick and Carnegie joined forces, with Frick acquiring an interest in Carnegie’s small coke business and Carnegie acquiring an interest in Frick’s company. Closer ties between the two companies proved to be very profitable for both but trying for each.

In Carnegie, Frick gained a partner with funds to allow the further expansion of his coke business; with Frick, Carnegie gained a talented businessman with the ability to cut costs and enlarge his steel business. The union of these two self-made men, though, was not always harmonious. In 1887, workers in the coke industry went on strike. Siding with his fellow coke producers, Frick would not give in to their demands. The disruption in coke production idled steel production, which prompted Carnegie, with his now controlling share in Frick’s company, to settle with the workers. In response, Frick choose to resign rather than give in to Carnegie’s demand for a settlement.

When the strike was finally settled, and the other coke producers conceded to provide a lower wage than the salary Carnegie had agreed to pay, Carnegie found that Frick had been right and wanted to get him back. By early 1889, Frick not only was back running the coke business but also was the chairman of the steel business, which came with a larger share of ownership. With Frick now firmly in control of the management of both businesses, he continued to apply his aggressive strategy of containing costs and buying out competitors when opportunities arose.

As the demand for steel for railroads and construction expanded, Frick’s strategy for growth and integration of the various parts of the business proved to be very profitable. By 1891, Carnegie Steel was producing more than 20 percent of the steel in the United States. Growing profits did not lessen Frick’s resolve to cut costs when possible. His determination was demonstrated in 1892, when workers went on strike at the Homestead steel mill. Unwilling to continue negotiations with the union representing the striking workers once his offer was rejected, Frick brought in employees of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to regain control of the mill. When the detectives were confronted by the armed striking workers, the battle that ensued resulted in the deaths of ten people, with another sixty wounded. Ultimately victorious in crushing the union, Frick helped tip the balance in the struggle between labor and management in favor of management.

The growth in profits did not lessen the on-again, off-again tension between Frick and Carnegie. With Frick resigning as chairman of Carnegie Steel in 1894 and Charles M. Schwab in charge and adding to the profitability of the company, the relationship between Frick and Carnegie continued to deteriorate. Following an unsuccessful attempt by a group that included Frick to buy Carnegie’s share of the business, and continued tensions between Frick’s coke company and Carnegie’s steel company over the price of coke, Carnegie in 1900 attempted to use a provision of the partners’ agreement to force Frick to sell his shares of the business at book value, only a fraction of the market value. Frick triumphed in the fight that followed, and all the partners profited when J. P. Morgan bought Carnegie Steel and integrated it into the newly formed United States Steel Corporation (better known as U.S. Steel) in 1901.

Frick’s share of the new company amounted to $61.4 million, of which about half represented his share of Carnegie Steel and the remainder his share of the coke company. This amount was significantly more than the $1.5 million that Carnegie offered for Frick’s shares in the steel company when he had tried to force him to sell.

In the years before his death, Frick sold off nearly all of his shares in U.S. Steel to buy interests in railroads, which he referred to as the “Rembrandts of investment.” By 1906, Frick was the largest private owner of railroad stocks in the world.

At the time of his death in 1919, Frick’s estate was estimated to be worth nearly $150 million, with financial assets valued at $77.5 million and his art collection at $50 million. His New York City home and $15 million were destined to become the Frick Collection, the museum that in the twenty-first century continued to house a substantial part of his art collection. In addition, about one-sixth of his estate went to family members, with his daughter Helen Clay Frick the major beneficiary. The remainder of his estate was distributed to Princeton University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a number of hospitals in the New York City and Pittsburgh areas, and various other public philanthropies.

Legacy

The name of Henry Clay Frick is associated with the means he used to acquire his wealth and the institution he endowed to display it. In his legal but ruthless dealings with labor and competitors, Frick’s business life helped define the term “robber baron.” In the final year of his life, he played a role in the defeat of the League of Nations, which he felt would subordinate the United States to the will of lesser countries. The Frick Collection stands as his most enduring legacy, displaying the passion he had for art and his desire to share it with the public.

Bibliography

Harvey, George. Henry Clay Frick: The Man. New York: Scribner’s, 1928. A flattering portrayal of Frick’s life, this book was written by one of his friends at the request of Frick’s family.

Sanger, Martha Frick Symington. Henry Clay Frick: An Intimate Portrait. New York: Abbeville Press, 1998. Written by one of Frick’s great-granddaughters, this book links Frick’s collection of art with events in his public and private lives.

Schreiner, Samuel A. Henry Clay Frick: The Gospel of Greed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. This is the first book-length biography written after Helen Clay Frick’s death. Her vigilance in protecting Frick’s legacy and papers is thought to have dissuaded researchers during her lifetime.

Standiford, Les. Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America. New York: Crown Publishers, 2005. Offers an interesting look at the relationship between Carnegie and Frick and how this relationship shaped the foundation of the U.S. steel industry.

Warren, Kenneth. Triumphant Capitalism: Henry Clay Frick and the Industrial Transformation of America. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996. Presents a scholarly look at Frick’s role in shaping the steel industry, as revealed through his business correspondence.