01 June 2021

Henry Clay Frick - greedy industrialist but stunning art collector


Frick home in Pittsburgh
later the Frick Art & Historical Centre

Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) was born to comfortable Mennonites, in West Overton, a rural community in SW Pennsylvania. He was the second of 6 children of an immigrant farmer who married into a flour merchant and whisky distiller family. Receiving only a brief formal education, Frick quickly ent­ered the working world. He worked as a sale­s­man in a Pittsburgh shop then as the chief book­keeper in his family distil­lery.

Frick home and gallery in New York

In the fledgling iron industry, the rich coal beds yielded seams of quality bituminous coal, id­eal for coking. In Mar 1871 Frick and a cousin in­vested family money to acquire low-priced coking fields and build 50 coke ovens. In time H.C Frick Coke Co operated c1000 working coke ovens and produced 80% of the coke used by Pittsburgh's burg­eon­ing iron and steel industries.

Taking advantage of the diff­icult times after the Financial Panic of 1873, Frick expanded his busin­ess, funded by brokering the sale of a local railroad to the Baltimore and Ohio Co. The US was at the peak of a massive railway build­ing pro­ject, needing much iron and steel. In order to smelt iron efficiently, coal was transformed into carbon-rich coke in huge ovens. The area around Pittsburgh, which contained the richest American coal seam, became the centre of a massive min­­­ing and cok­ing industry, supplied by Frick!

Frick soon moved to Pitts­burgh, estab­lishing residence in the prosp­erous Homewood suburb after marriage in 1881 to Adelaide Howard Childs, daughter of a boot maker. Soon af­ter, Frick met steel magnate Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), be­ginning a long, integrated bus­in­ess relationship. In 1882, Frick re­or­ganised the firm into H.C Frick Coke Co with huge assets and a stock issue of 40,000 shares.

Henry Clay Frick

The Fricks' first home was an 11-room, 2.5 storey house bought in Aug 1882. This Italianate residence was later re­mod­el­l­ed into a 23-room, 4-storey Loire château, later becoming the Frick Art & Historical Centre.

In 1889 Frick became chairman of Carnegie Brothers and Co. steel bus­i­ness. He introduced major improve­ments and bought out Carnegie’s chief competitor, Duquesne Steel Works. He was responsible for building Carnegie into the largest manu­facturer of steel and coke in the world.

NB a historic scandal. The South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club counted many of Pittsburgh’s leading industrialists and financiers in its 61 members, incl Andrew Carnegie, Henry Frick and Andrew Mellon. There was an init­iat­ive to convert a former public dam in Pennsyl­vania into an elite luxury resort, the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. The dam’s height was lowered when building a road over it, and safety requirements were ignored on Club members' command. In May 1889 endless rain burst the dam, drowning the down­-river community of John­s­town and its 2,200 people. An investig­at­ion by the American Soc­iety of Civil Eng­ineers allocated no fault. No-one at the Club was gaoled, nor did they pay dam­ages to working class families who lost relatives and homes.

Next Frick tried to destroy the most important ele­ment of my pol­itical life: using his skills to prevent workers in the cok­ing ind­ustry from unionising. Labour in steelworks was more organ­is­ed, but Frick under­cut unions in his factories. This led in 1892 to a key con­flict in the history of American labour between the Amal­gamated Ass­oc­iation-AA of Iron and Steel Workers and the Carneg­ie Steel Co. To counter union demands for a raise, Frick threat­ened to cut wages just when steel prices were high.

In July 1892 workers at Carnegie Steel Co.’s Homestead Works went on strike. Until they refused to come back to work, Frick lock­ed the workers outside. An army of 300 strike-breakers from Pinkerton National Detective Agency were brought in to guard the mills, turning Homestead into a war-zone. In the ensuing Bat­­tle, many steel workers were killed or injured, quel­led only by the interv­ent­ion of the National Guard. Mar­tial law was declared and the plant resumed operations with the starving workers still picketing.

Frick's actions in the Battle resulted in attempted mur­d­er. In July 1892, Frick and the Carnegie Steel vice-president were talking in Frick's office when Russian anarchist Alex­an­der Berkman rushed in. Berk­man pul­l­ed a revolver and shot Frick to the floor; then Berk­man aimed again. John Lei­sh­man pro­tected Frick and forced Berkman to miss his target, so he tried stabbing the wounded Frick. Leish­man went af­ter Berkman who was grabbed by the local sher­iff. Frick survived and public sympathy for the strikers collapsed.

In 1900, J.P Morgan consolid­at­ed both Carnegie Steel Co. and H.C Frick Co. into US Steel Corpor­at­ion, with Frick as director. Bec­ause of his body pain, the position was the end of Frick's long career.

Art Collection
Frick had neither a great education nor art-loving friends, yet having seen the best art in Europe during his trips, his eye grew astute. This was an era when Eur­ope’s aristo­crats were declining in fortune, even as American business­men grew very pros­perous. Art crossed the Atlantic!

Frick’s New York man­s­ion, bought in 1905, was specifically designed to house the coll­ec­tion. It was to be a gall­ery that would en­courage the public’s study of fine arts. And he added $15 million for maint­enance.

Other industrialists built private col­l­ections, but they oft­en out­sourced buying works to expert advisers. Frick made his own art choices eg Giovanni Bellini, Hans Hol­bein II, Diego Veláz­quez, Rub­ens and Fragonard. And 3 striking works by Johannes Vermeer.

Rembrandt, Polish Rider, 1655

Girl Interrupted at Her Music, 
Johannes Vermeer. Wikimedia Commons

By his 1919 death, Frick had left $15,000,000 and his Fifth Ave home to establish the Frick Collection: paintings, bronzes & enamels he’d long collected. The Frick Collection is one of my fav­our­ite mus­eums, created by a largely self-made man in a fine New York treasure! And Frick's phil­an­thropic activities were important. He be­queathed the sizable Frick Park to Pittsburgh and gave to Princeton Uni.

But the real story might be of a robber bar­on, a ruthless industrial­ist. Clearly if art has a moral pur­pose i.e to make art lovers resp­on­s­ible citizens, Frick showed oth­erwise. If we are to value art at all, it must be largely on its own terms, rath­er than as a func­tion of the own­er’s morality or politics.






23 comments:

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Hels - thanks for letting us know about Frick ... I knew of his art collection - but not of the background. Interesting to read your thoughts - Hilary

Train Man said...

Carnegie Steel's Battle wasn't the first time an industrial boss treated his workers with brutality. But it might have been the ugliest. Not because more workers were killed than in any other industrial battle, but because it became a model for other industrial battles.

Hels said...

Hilary

I truly loved the Frick home and gallery in New York, both the architecture and the art works. This came as a bit of a surprise, since I knew Frick's politics and industrial history well. I was so in love with the Rembrandt, Holbein, Titian and Vermeer art works, I would have been polite to Frick just to get regular access. You know what I mean :)

Hels said...

Train Man

Frick was not the first to protect the strikebreakers he hired; he was merely following the example of many industrialists battling workers and unions. Even calling in the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to infiltrate the unions and break the strikes had been done before. But Frick's order to kill his striking workers, and his request to place the plant and the surrounding town under martial law, were truly horrible.

ArchitectDesign™ said...

always enjoy reading about the scandalous Frick. Growing up in Pittsburgh my grandparents would take me to 'clayton house' as it's known once or twice a year (your image in the post). Beautiful grounds, lovely restored house, green houses, and a little art museum that is really great. Well worth a visit if you've never visited!

Dr. F said...

The human heart is a mysterious thing. How many artists have been bad human beings but still could produce beautiful works of art. During the course of a lifetime, things can change for better or worse. How was Fricj affected by the death of his young daughter in a tragic accident.

Anyway, I don't ageee that the purpose of art is to produce better cr more responsible citizens. that was the purpose of Soviet art, and what did it produce?

Frank

Hels said...

ArchitectDesign

Thank goodness for caring grandparents. I too depended on my grandparents ... for concerts, ballet and pantomimes in the 1950s :)

I have been to Pittsburgh and visited, with the children, the Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Science Center. For my own pleasure I visited the Carnegie Museum of Art. If Covid ever ends, I will have to plan another trip to Pittsburgh.

Hels said...

Dr F

you raise an important issue about whether we can judge important people from the past by today's moral and legal standards. I would make two responses.

1. Some behaviour is so intolerable that even if it was legal and moral back in history, we don't want to see any public memorials to that behaviour now eg slavery, exploitation of women, shooting civilians. All nastiness from the past needs to be called out for what it was.

2. Today's morals may not be so different from those of the past after all. I suspect that the overworking, underpaying and starvation of labourers was always seen as immoral, even if the workers could do nothing about it.

Hels said...

Anonymous

my pleasure. Have you had a chance to visit either of the Frick Galleries yet?

Parnassus said...

Hello Hels, It seems that most people get the money to buy great art masterpieces by being robber barons first. Some of the moneymakers are so despicable (e.g. Russell Sage), that the philanthropy is lest to the widows and descendants. On the other hand, it is interesting how many famous collectors have been so determined to share their art during their lifetimes that they have even opened their houses to the public. In Cleveland's art museum, there are so many waves of important donors that one can read the city's social, business and art histories at the the same time.
--Jim

Hels said...

Parnassus

True! I am totally impressed with famous collectors who either gave their art to the state outright or kept ownership within the family on strict conditions of opening to the public. This was even more obvious when we see the very many successful industrialists who did NOT give a toss about the general public.

Sir Robert Walpole was a great example, bless his heart! He had created a great art collection, and later housed it in the British Museum for public pleasure.

Anonymous said...

History tells us that the properly paid workers with decent working conditions become valuable and committed employees to a business. I note the name Andrew Carnegie. Australian?

Hels said...

Andrew

that should have been known by everyone, yes! Look at the 19th century company towns in Britain where the company provided decent housing for its workers, and transport to the working site. In return workers from all over the country tried to work for the company and to move to the company towns.

Carnegie was Scottish and later went to America to participate in that country's growing American steel industry. There was only one surprise about Carnegie working with Frick. Carnegie’s father and grandfather were very excited supporters about workingmen’s causes in Britain - safety, proper wages etc.

DUTA said...

I feel grateful to those who collect works of art, and especially those who share them with the public, but I never forget that many of them get the big money for the acquisition of these works by exploiting other people.

Your post, by the way, reminds of a blogger, a german lady living in England, user name FRIKO, a lady with a vast knowledge of Art in all its forms. Two or three months ago she mentioned taking a break because of some problems, and still hasn't resumed blogging. I'm rather worried.

Luiz Gomes said...

Boa tarde Hels. Sempre aprendo com o seu exclusivo, excelente e maravilhoso trabalho.

Hels said...

DUTA

I always assume that people with truck loads of money earned it by not paying tax, exploiting their workers, declaring bankrupcy every time they had a large debt or hiding it in Swiss bank accounts. Or their fathers did. So if they return their success to their communities via cultural facilities, educational institutions or charities, at least that seems fair in the long run.

Re bloggers who seem to have disappeared, I take their names off my Favourite Blogger List after 12 months of no new posts. But I miss them in my blogging life.

Hels said...

Luiz

did you travel much, at least before Covid struck? Whenever I was going overseas, I prepared a list of architectural treasures, museums, galleries etc that had to be visited.. then read them all up before leaving home.

Fun60 said...

I was familiar with the name of Frick and his art collection but not of his background. I am surprised there was a close connection with Carnegie as I think of him as having moral standards with regard to general working standards.

Hels said...

Fun

I too thought of Carnegie has having decent moral standards with regard to his own workers. In Scotland Carnegie came from a non-wealthy family who definitely believed in labour unions and fought for workers rights. Yet when he became hugely successful in the USA, he treated his workers unfairly. Either in the new economy Carnegie changed his world philosophy, to match the other US leaders of industry. Or the arrival of his vast wealth in the US turned his head.

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Frank said...

Helen:

I believe that Robert Walpole’s art collection was sold to Catherine the Great of Russia after his death and not given to the BM. A few years ago the Hermitage lent the paintings back to GB for an exhibition at Houghton Hall, his former home. I believe that Prince Charles played a role. Here’s a link to an account of the exhibition.

Frank
https://giorgionetempesta.blogspot.com/2013/05/houghton-hall-exhibition.html.



Hels said...

Alice

thank you. Have you visited either Frick home-gallery, in Pittsburgh or in New York?

Hels said...

Frank

you are so correct! Even if I didn't remember Walpole's family running out of money and selling the treasures to the Russian royals, I absolutely do remember the paintings that were sent back to Houghton Hall for the 2013 Exhibition.

Hopefully my original hope was met - that Walpole had created a great art collection, and it was later housed it in an important museum for public pleasure. In this case, The Hermitage.