Andrew Carnegie, whose life became a rags-to-riches story, was born into humble situation on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland, the next of two sons of Will, a handloom weaver, and Margaret, who did stitching work for limited shoemakers. In 1848, the Carnegie family (who marked their name “carNEgie”) moved to America in search of improved fiscal opportunities and established in Allegheny City (now part of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania.
Determined and hard-working, he went on to hold a sequence of jobs, counting messenger in a telegraph office and secretary and telegraph operative for the administrator of the Pittsburgh separation of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1859, Carnegie be successful his boss as railroad separation superintendent. While in this position, he made gainful investments in a diversity of businesses, counting coal, iron and oil companies and a producer of railroad inactive cars.
In the early 1870s, Carnegie co-founded his first steel corporation, near Pittsburgh. Over the next few decades, he shaped a steel empire; exploit profits and minimizing inefficiencies during ownership of factories, raw equipment and moving infrastructure involved in steel-making. In 1892, his prime holdings were combining to form Carnegie Steel Company.
After Carnegie sold his steel company, the miniature titan, who stood 5’3”, withdraw from business and dedicated him full-time to philanthropy. In 1889, he had penned an essay, “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he affirmed that the rich have “a moral compulsion to issue [their money] in ways that encourage the wellbeing and happiness of the common man.” Carnegie also said that “The man who dies thus rich dies shamed.”
Carnegie finally gave away some $350 million (the equivalent of billions in today’s dollars), which symbolize the bulk of his wealth. Among his philanthropic behavior, he funded the organization of more than 2,500 public libraries around the globe, contribute more than 7,600 organs to churches worldwide and gifted association (many still in existence today) enthusiastic to research in science, education, world peace and other reason.
