Andrew Carnegie (1835 - 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist who led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late nineteenth century. [1] Rising from a poor immigrant family to become one of the richest men in the world, he built Carnegie Steel Company and sold it in 1901 to form the United States Steel Corporation. [2] In his later years he devoted his wealth to philanthropy, funding thousands of public libraries and a range of educational and scientific institutions. [1]
Early life and emigration
Carnegie was born on 25 November 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland, the son of a handloom weaver whose livelihood was undercut by industrial mechanization. [1] In 1848 the family emigrated to the United States, settling near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a boy he worked as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill and later as a telegraph messenger, teaching himself the trade and impressing his employers with his diligence. [2]
Railroads and early investments
Carnegie joined the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he rose to become superintendent of the Pittsburgh division under Thomas A. Scott, a mentor who guided his early investments. [2] Profits from railroad-related ventures, including bridge building, sleeping cars, and iron, gave him the capital and industrial knowledge that he would soon turn toward steel. [1]
Carnegie Steel
In the 1870s Carnegie concentrated his efforts on steel, adopting the Bessemer process and building large integrated mills such as the Edgar Thomson works. [1] By pursuing vertical integration, cost accounting, and continual reinvestment, he undercut competitors and drove down prices, and his firms were consolidated as the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892. [2] The bitter Homestead strike of that year, marked by a deadly clash between workers and Pinkerton agents, damaged his reputation as a friend of labor. [1] In 1901 he sold his interests to a group led by J. P. Morgan for roughly 480 million dollars, and the assets became the core of the United States Steel Corporation. [2]
Philanthropy and The Gospel of Wealth
Carnegie argued that the wealthy held their fortunes in trust for society and had a duty to distribute them wisely during their lifetimes, a view set out in his 1889 essay commonly known as The Gospel of Wealth. [3] He funded more than two thousand public libraries in the English-speaking world and established institutions including the Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Mellon University's forerunner, and Carnegie Hall in New York. [1] He also promoted international peace, endowing the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and in 1911 created the Carnegie Corporation of New York to continue his giving. [3]
Legacy
Carnegie died on 11 August 1919 in Lenox, Massachusetts, having given away the great majority of his fortune. [2] He remains a defining figure of the American Gilded Age, remembered both as a symbol of self-made industrial success and, through his endowments, as one of the most influential philanthropists in modern history. [1]
