Answered
Who is Andrew Carnegie?
Andrew Carnegie was one of the wealthiest men during the 1800's, he revolutionized the steel industry during the era of railroad expansion. He was rich. This was because he ha…d lots of business with the industries and he sold steel at very low prices. Emma - The Life of Andrew Carnegie in a little more detail.... Andrew Carnegie was the son of a handloom weaver He was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on 25th November, 1835. The economic depression of 1848 convinced the Carnegie family to emigrate to the United States where they joined a Scottish colony near Pittsburgh. Andrew began work aged 12 in a local cotton factory but continued his education by attending night school. At 14 Carnegie became a messenger boy in the local Pittsburgh Telegraph Office. His abilities were noticed by Thomas A. Scott, the superintendent of the western division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. After the war Carnegie succeeded Scott as superintendent of the western division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Carnegie invested in many factories . The most important of these was Keystone Bridge, a company which he owned a one-fifth share. Carnegie decided that steel would now replace iron for the manufacture of heavy goods. Carnegie wrote a series of books including Round the World (1881), An American Four-in-Hand in Britain (1883) and Triumphant Democracy (1886), where he compared the egalitarianism of America with the class-based inequalities of Britain and other European countries. The Carnegie Steel Company was valued at $25 million and was now the largest steel company in the world. The Carnegie Steel Company continued to expand and between 1889 and 1899. Carnegie now had a personal fortune of $225,000,000. Carnegie set built 3,000 public libraries (380 of these in Britain), also included were the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Carnegie Institution of Washington for research into the natural and physical sciences. By the time Andrew Carnegie died in August, 1919, he had given away $350,000,000. A further $125 million was placed with the Carnegie Corporation to carry on his good works. A Scottish born US steel industrialist turned philanthropist. (MORE)
