Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835 in Scotland and died August 11, 1919 in Massachusetts. He was an American industrialist who led the expansion of the steel industry. During Carnegie’s childhood, an economic downturn resulted in his family moving to Pennsylvania. At age 14, Carnegie became a messenger in a telegraph office, where he eventually became the secretary and telegrapher of Thomas Scott, a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. In 1859, he rose above Scott as superintendent of the railroad’s Pittsburgh division.
During this time he began making industrial investments in businesses such as the Keystone Bridge Company. Foreseeing the future demand for iron and steel, Carnegie left the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1865 and started managing the Keystone Bridge Company. From about 1872–73, he began
concentrating on steel, investing in the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works, which would eventually become the Carnegie Steel Company. In the 1870s, Carnegie’s company built the first steel plants in the United States to use the Bessemer steelmaking process. Carnegie obtained greater profit by buying out the suppliers of the raw materials for steelmaking.
Carnegie also recruited very capable employees to work for him, including Henry Clay Frick. By 1889, the Carnegie Steel Company dominated the American steel
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His most famous article, “Wealth,” appearing in the North American Review. This held that a man who has great wealth has a duty to use his surplus wealth for “the improvement of mankind”. A “man who dies rich dies disgraced.” Carnegie’s own donations came to total about $350,000,000. His main charitable foundations, were the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Carnegie Corporation of New