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Historians say he was a steel magnate in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during America's industrial revolution. Others, like john l. Lewis, said he was a mean-spirited, ruthless, business type who prostituted his workers and forced them to work in very dangerous conditions.

He felt that the wealthy should repay their debt to society, which is why he sponsored the creation of Carnegie hall and other institutions and colleges. He also felt that a man who died rich was a disgrace, and when he did die he spent the majority of his fortune on charitable institutions. Was the only true rags to riches story of this era, JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller were both initially well born where Carnegie was an Irish immigrant who had nothing.

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14y ago
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3w ago

Andrew Carnegie was famous for being a prominent industrialist and philanthropist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was known for his role in expanding the steel industry in the United States and for his philanthropic efforts, including the establishment of libraries and educational institutions. Additionally, Carnegie is known for advocating for the concept of the "Gospel of Wealth," which promoted the idea of wealthy individuals using their fortunes to benefit society.

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15y ago

Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland on November 25, 1835. His father was a weaver. He grew up as part of a poor working class family. He came to the United States with his family in 1848 and lived in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. When he was 13, Andrew went to work in a cotton mill. Then he worked with Western Union and the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1865, he quit to make his own business and then made the Carnegie Steel Company. When he was 65 he sold the company to J. P. Morgan for $480 million and devoted the rest of his life to his writing, and including his autobiography.

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6y ago

Andrew Carnegie was a 19th century steel tycoon who became one of the 20th century's most famous philanthropists. His life story is one of the most famous rags-to-riches accounts in United States history. Born in Scotland, Carnegie moved to Pennsylvania and eventually became wealthy through his Steel and other interests. In old age he retired from his business and began to give his money away. He gave whole libraries (building plus books) to hundreds of communities around the US. He was unable to give it all away during his life, so his will established the Carnegie Foundation, which continues to give money to worthy causes.

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14y ago

- World's greatest philanthropist

- After 1873 he buildt a steel empire that by the turn of the century produced more steel than all of Great Britain.

- When he retired in 1901 he used his fortune to build public libraries, and esablish a # of foundations as well as educational and research institutions.

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12y ago

Carnegie became successful through a combination of hard work, intensive efforts at self-education, a bit of luck in finding an excellent mentor, efficient management, making and using connections with important people, astute choices when choosing what to invest in - in this case steel manufacturing just as the industry was really taking off and the Bessemer steel process had just been introduced, and a good dose of insider trading on the part of his mentor to provide him with the necessary capital to get it all started. Note that while very unethical and probably corrupt, the insider trading was not entirely illegal at the time.

His first job at age 13 in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day.

In 1850, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company. He was a very hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work quickly learning to distinguish the differing sounds the incoming telegraph signals produced and learned to translate signals by ear, without having to write them down and within a year was promoted as an operator.

Starting in 1853, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed Carnegie as a secretary/telegraph operator. Scott eventually rose to become the president of the company. Under the guidance of Scott, Carnegie began a rapid advancement through the company, becoming the superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division. His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all (eventually becoming the biggest). Carnegie learned much about management and cost control during these years, and from Scott in particular.

Scott also helped him with his first investments. Many of these were part of the corruption indulged in by Scott and the Pennsylvania's president, J. Edgar Thomson, which consisted of inside trading in companies that the railroad did business with, or payoffs made by contracting parties "as part of a quid pro quo."

In 1855, Scott made it possible for Carnegie to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by the act of his mother placing a $500 mortgage on the family's $700 home, but the opportunity was only available because of Carnegie's close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in T.T. Woodruff's sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connection to Thomson and Scott as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises.

Before the Civil War, Carnegie arranged a merger between Woodruff's company and that of George M Pullman, the inventor of a sleeping car for first class travel which facilitated business travel at distances over 500 miles (800 km). The investment proved a great success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie continued to work for the Pennsylvania's Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.

In spring 1861, Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory.

In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on the property sold profitably. The demand for iron products, such as armor for gunboats, cannon, and shells, as well as a hundred other industrial products, made Pittsburgh a center of wartime production. Carnegie worked with others in establishing a steel rolling mill and steel production and control of industry became the source of his fortune. Carnegie had some investments in the iron industry before the war.

After the war, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming The Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management, namely Thomas A. Scott and J. Edgar Thomson. He used his connection to the two men to acquire contracts for his Keystone Bridge Company and the rails produced by his ironworks. He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best customer. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Carnegie possessed charm and literary knowledge. He was invited to many important social functions-functions that Carnegie exploited to his own advantage.

Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. One of his two great innovations was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel by adopting and adapting the Bessemer process for steel making. In 1888, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a 425-mile (685 km) long railway, and a line of lake steamships. Carnegie combined his assets and those of his associates in 1892 with the launching of the Carnegie Steel Company.

Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works, (named for John Edgar Thomson, Carnegie's former boss and president of the Pennsylvania Railroad), Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Union Iron Mills, the Union Mill (Wilson, Walker & County), the Keystone Bridge Works, the Hartman Steel Works, the Frick Coke Company, and the Scotia ore mines. Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (completed 1874). This project was an important proof-of-concept for steel technology, which marked the opening of a new steel market.

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14y ago

YOUR MOTHER jk jk

Carnegie faced the binding power the government attempted to place on big businesses.

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12y ago

Cutting costs and price for his products

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12y ago

he drank 2 much whisky

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Q: Why was Andrew Carnegie famous?
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