The Life and Times of Andrew W. Mellon

Andrew W. Mellon was a polish immigrant. He started to work at a young age with his father at his business.  Like an normal person Andrew wanted to make money on his own and create his own wealth. Even though he felt that way he never put forth the work necessary to create such wealth. Andrew helped found and fund ALCOA, Carborundum, Koppers, and Gulf Oil companies. While he helped fund and found these, he was rarely interested in details of oil business, but he acquired extensive holdings from these companies. That was fair, but he wasn't necessarily a "part" of these oil industries. He finally got his head in the game, and by 1914 he was the richest man in the U.S. He wanted to do other things involving politics, so he ran for sectary of treasury in 1921 and got his wish. As sectary he cut taxes and enforced Prohibition. After being sectary of treasury, he still wanted to be involved with the country, so he was sent to Britain as the American Ambassador. During his life time he gave away 10 million dollars during his life to charity, but mainly to the National Gallery of Art in D.C.

While Andrew was a great man who attained much wealth, he was some what unpopular during different times in his life. He became unpopular during the Great Depression which was a time when the U.S. as a whole was a dying as a country due to debt and the stock market crash. Hoover was the president at this time and Andrew suggested to liquidate everything, farmers and real estate, etc. This meant people would work hard and people would work for more life. But the problem with this was that people couldn't work during a period there being no work, jobs, or money. Andrew also wanted to "weed out" weak banks as a harsh but necessary need for recovery of the banking system. While he was Sectary of treasury during the the great depression, he was over sees most of the time in Europe, which did no good for the people suffering in America. Later on in his life Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration subjected Andrew in full investigation of his personal income tax returns. Franklin and Andrew did not get along, but finally the trail was exonerated, sevens months before Mellon's death.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_W._Mellon

Andrew W. Mellon

http://www.mellon.org/about_foundation/history/andrew-w-mellon