Andrew Carnegie was born November 25, 1835 in Scotland. He was born to a linen weaver and a shoemaker. He lived in Scotland till the age of 13. When Andrew was 13, his dads handloom business started to die down due to the rise of industrialization, so his family emigrated to the United States and settled in Pennsylvania. He got his first job when they first moved. He worked as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory. He worked at that job 12 hours a day, 6 days a week with a starting wage of $1.20 per week. In 1850, Carnegie got a job as a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office.
Then in 1853, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed him as a secretary/telegraph operator. He became the superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the Railroad Company when he was 18 years old. Thomas A. Scott also helped him with his first investments. In 1855, Scott helped him invest $500 dollars into Adams Express, as a reward, which was a freight and cargo company.
While he was still employed at the Railroad, he invested in a new company to manufacture railroad sleeping cars. He expanded his business to the building of bridges, locomotives, and rails. A few years later he got a few share in T.T. Woodruffs sleeping car company as a reward.
After the Civil War, Carnegie left the Railroad and put all his time into the ironworks trade. He founded the Keystone Bridge Company in 1865, which was an American bridge building company.
Carnegie used the money he made to help other people. He built libraries, public institutions, and colleges. He made his money in the steel industry. By 1889, the US was making more steel than the UK and Andrew was the owner of a lot of it.
In 1901, when Carnegie was 66 years old, he started thinking about retirement. He sold his company to J.P. Morgan. After retiring, he became a philanthropist. He donated $5 million dollars to the New York Public Library, he established the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, he formed the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and he also created the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Andrew Carnegie died on August 11, 1919 of bronchial pneumonia. Carnegie had a huge impact on the steel industry for the United States.
Comments
Good summary of Carnegie but no personal thoughts added.