Andrew Carnegie: The Order Behind the Letter

In December 1868, in a hotel room on Broadway, a man wrote himself a set of orders with a deadline on it. He kept the sheet for 51 years and never did what it said. Told in 16 parts across about 53 minutes, from contemporary photographs, official records and first-hand accounts. Every claim in the narration is sourced; where the record is contested, the film says so rather than choosing the better story. Chapters 0:00 December 1868: a sheet of hotel notepaper 1:31 1835: one room over a loom 4:02 17 May 1848: the crossing 6:35 1849: Colonel Anderson's 400 books 8:59 1853: Scott's Andy, and a $10 cheque 12:07 1 September 1875: the first rail, and the cost sheet 16:32 22 April 1887: the woman who signed 19:38 1886-1889: what he published 22:18 30 June 1892: the fence 25:58 6 July 1892: the barges 29:18 12 July 1892: master of this situation 32:26 Rannoch Lodge: the cables, July 1892 35:35 14 February 1900: the Iron Clad in court 39:38 12 December 1900: $480,000,000 43:33 1883-1929: 2,509 buildings 48:15 1919-1990: the only child Attribution Archive material in this film comes from Wikimedia Commons and the Internet Archive. 89 images in this film are public domain or CC0 and carry no attribution condition. CC BY 2.0 - Heritage Preservation Department - MNHS; JuliaC2006 from Rochester, UK CC BY 4.0 - Harrison Keely; Heritage Preservation Department - MNHS; Larry D. Moore; Myotus CC BY-SA 2.0 - Christopher Lancaster from Toronto, Canada; Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States; Euan Nelson; M J Richardson; Richard Sutcliffe; Stanley Howe CC BY-SA 3.0 - CUKT; Gryffindor CC BY-SA 4.0 - Epicgenius; Frank Schulenburg; JDavidZeff; No Swan So Fine; P. Hughes; Rodhullandemu; Spudgun67; Tdorante10; Youthelectronix Every image is listed individually, with its source URL and licence, in the film's own credits file. Disclosure This film is narrated with a synthetic (text-to-speech) voice. Every photograph in it is a real archive image - none were generated - and each one is credited above and listed individually in the film's credits file.