The Philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie Made Him a Hero “Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.” Andrew Carnegie believes that if you are fortunate enough to make a lot of money you should also be smart enough to give it back to your community and peers. Carnegie was a self-made man who was born in an attic of a little cottage in Scotland. When Carnegie was twelve he and his family packed up and moved to Pittsburgh. That is when he got his first job as a bobbin boy in a textile mill. He made about 1.20 per week so he later quit that job and found a new one decoding the dot-dot dash-dash messages in a railroad station. He became “famous” for that because he was …show more content…
One piece of evidence that supports this reason is that Carnegie gave fifteen million dollars to the Teachers’ pension fund. He also endowed a few universities in Scotland. Carnegie gave close to ten million dollars to the schools in Scotland. He also donated 400 thousand dollars to Princeton University so they could create a lake to help the rowing team (document C). This evidence helps explain why Carnegie was a hero because he showed courage and intelligence by donating that money to education. Carnegie didn’t only donate to education, he gave over 170 million to different charities and …show more content…
When he bought the castle for round ten million dollars, it boasted the local economy. It also provided the people with a lot of jobs. When the renovation of the castle was finished, Carnegie still needed people to take care of the house and yard. Also having Carnegie renovate the castle made the prices of local real estate go up because the castle made everything look better and created more tourism. This made the town around it look better and more people wanted to live there. This evidence helps explain why Carnegie was a hero because he helped all of the local people by providing them with plenty of jobs.
It is true there is another side to the argument. For example, a lot of people said that Carnegie was two faced because he was cutting his employees wages and at the same time he was donating millions of dollars to charities. People say that he only gave away his money to make himself look better. However, in the final analysis Andrew Carnegie was a hero because he showed a lot of concern for others, he donated over two billion dollars to charities and he provided a lot of job opportunity for people both in Scotland and