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Andrew Carnegie (November 25, 1835 – August
11, 1919) was a Scottish-American businessman, a major philanthropist,
and the founder of the Carnegie Steel Company which later became U.S.
Steel. He is known for having, later in his life, given away most of his
riches to fund the establishment of many libraries, schools, and
universities in America and worldwide.
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Formative influences
The Carnegie family in Scotland
Andrew Carnegie was born on Wednesday,
November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. He was the son of a
hand loom weaver, William Carnegie. His mother was Margaret, daughter of
one Thomas Morrison, a tanner and shoemaker.
Many of Carnegie's closest relatives were
self-educated tradesmen and class activists. William Carnegie, whilst
poor, had educated himself and, as far as his resources would permit,
saw to it that his children received an education, as well. William
Carnegie was moreover a . He wrote frequently to newspapers and
contributed articles in the radical pamphlet, Cobbett's Register edited
by William Cobbett. Amongst other things, he argued for: abolition of
the Rotten Boroughs and reform of the British House of Commons, which
occurred much later in the Great Reform Act of 1832, Catholic
Emancipation, and Laws governing safety at work, which were passed many
years later in the Factory Acts. Most radically of all, however, he
promoted the abolition of all forms of hereditary privilege, including
all monarchies.
Another great influence on the young Andrew
Carnegie was his uncle, George Lauder, a proprietor of a small grocers
shop in Dunfermline High Street. This uncle introduced the young
Carnegie to such historical Scottish heroes as Robert the Bruce, William
Wallace, and Rob Roy. He was also introduced to the writings of Robbie
Burns. It was, perhaps, Burns who most influenced Carnegie, who regarded
Burns as one of the greatest preachers of Democracy. Uncle George Lauder
had Carnegie commit to memory many pages of Burns's writings, writings
that were to stay with him for the rest of his life.
George Lauder was additionally interested
in the United States. Lauder saw the U.S.A. as a country with
"democratic institutions".
Another uncle, his mother's brother, "Ballie"
Morrison, was also a radical political firebrand. The chief object of
this gentleman's tirades was the Church of England and the Church of
Scotland. "Ballie" Morrison was a fervent nonconformist. In 1842, the
young Carnegie's radical sentiments were stirred further at the news of
Uncle "Ballie" being imprisoned for his part in a "Cessation of Labour"
(strike). At this time, withdrawal of labour by an hireling was covered
by criminal law. Notwithstanding these literary and political
influences, poverty in the Carnegie family was always at hand and
severe.
Emigration to America
Andrew Carnegie's father had worked as a
jobbing hand loom weaver. This involved receiving the mill's raw
materials at his cottage and weaving them into cloth on the primitive
loom in the cottage. In the 1840's, a new system was coming into being,
the factory system. During this era, mill owners began constructing
large weaving mills with looms powered at first by water wheels and
later by steam engines. These factories could produce cloth at far lower
cost, partly through increased mechanisation and economies of scale, but
partly also by paying mill workers very low wages and by working them
very long hours. The success of the mills forced William Carnegie to
seek work in the mills or elsewhere away from home. However, the radical
views of Andrew Carnegie's father were well known, and he was not
wanted.
He chose to emigrate. His mother's two
sisters had already emigrated, but it was his wife who persuaded William
Carnegie to make the passage. Making the passage was not easy, however,
for they had to find the passage money. They were forced to sell their
meagre possessions and borrow some £20 from friends, a considerable sum
in 1848.
That May, his family emigrated to the
U.S.A., sailing on the Wiscasset, a former whaler that took the family
from Broomielaw, in Glasgow, to New York. From there they proceeded up
the Hudson River and the Erie Canal to Lake Erie and then to Allegheny,
Pennsylvania, where William Carnegie found work in a cotton factory.
Young Andrew Carnegie found work in the
same building as a "Bobbin boy" for the sum of $1.20 per week. His
younger brother, by some eight years, Thomas, was sent to school. Andrew
Carnegie, the Scot, quickly became Andrew Carnegie the American. Three
years after arriving in the U.S.A., the young Carnegie began writing to
his friends in Scotland extolling the great virtues of American
democracy whilst disparaging and criticising "feudal British
institutions". At the same time, he followed in his father's footsteps
and wrote letters to the newspapers including the New York Tribune on
subjects such as slavery.
Early career
1850-1860: A 'self made man'
Andrew Carnegie's education and passion for
reading was given a great boost by one Colonel James Anderson, who
opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday
night. Carnegie was a most persistent borrower. Andrew Carnegie was a
"self made man" in the roundest possible sense insofar as it applied not
only to his economic development but also to his intellectual and
cultural development. His capacity and willingness for hard work, his
perseverance, and his alertness, soon brought forth opportunities.
In 1851, he became a Telegraph Messenger
boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per
week. This, to the young Carnegie, seemed a fortune. In addition to
providing him with an increase in income, the job also provided him with
a lifelong love of Shakespeare's works. He was frequently required to
deliver messages to a theatre, and he often managed to contrive
appearing just as the curtain had been raised on a performance. Using a
charm that was to pay even greater dividends in the future, Carnegie was
then usually able to convince the theatre's manager to allow him to stay
and watch the performance for free. When Carnegie was not at the theatre
or improving his mind with a book, he would spend time listening to the
telegraph instrument itself. The electric telegraph transmitted its
signals along the wires that traversed the nation. When they were
received into the telegraph office, they were transcribed into readable
script on a long paper tape with the aid of an elaborate machine. He
quickly learned to distinguish the differing sound the incoming signals
produced and learned to transcribe, himself. At the time, Andrew
Carnegie was one of only two or three persons so gifted in the entire
country. Having learned Telegraphy, he was noted by Thomas A. Scott of
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, who employed him as a
secretary/Telegraph operator starting in 1853, at the princely salary of
$4.00 per week. Carnegie was sixteen and soon began a rapid advancement
through the company, eventually becoming the Superintendent of the
Pittsburgh Division.
1860-1865: Carnegie during the U.S. Civil
War
During the pre-war period, Andrew Carnegie
had formed a partnership with a Mr. Woodruff, an inventor. Woodruff's
invention was the sleeping car. The great distances transversed by
railways had meant stopping for the night at hotels and inns by the
railside, so that passengers could rest. The sleeping car sped up travel
and helped Americans settle the American west. The investment proved a
great success and a source of great fortune for Woodruff and Carnegie.
The young Carnegie, who started work at an early age as a bobbin boy in
a cotton mill, and, who was, a few years later, engaged as a telegraph
clerk and operator with the Atlantic and Ohio Company, now became the
superintendent of the western division of the entire line. In this post,
Carnegie was responsible for several improvements in the service. When
the American Civil War opened in 1861, he accompanied Scott, then
Assistant United States Secretary of War, to the front.
Following his good fortune, Carnegie
proceeded to increase it still further through fortunate and careful
investments. In 1864, Carnegie invested the sum of $40,000 in Storey
Farm on Oil Creek, in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In one year, the
farm yielded over $1,000,000 in cash dividends, and oil from oil wells
on the property sold profitably. Carnegie was subsequently associated
with others in establishing a steel rolling mill.
Aside from Carnegie's investment successes,
he was beginning to figure prominently in the American cause and in
American culture. With the Civil War raging, Carnegie soon found himself
in Washington. Carnegie was selected by his boss at the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company, Thomas A. Scott, who was now Assistant Secretary of
War in charge of military transportation, to join him in Washington.
Carnegie was appointed Superintendent of the Military Railways and the
Union Government's telegraph lines in the East and was Scott's right
hand man. Carnegie, himself, was on the foot plate of the locomotive
that pulled the first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington.
Shortly after this, following the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he
personally supervised the transportation of the defeated forces. Under
his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient service to
the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory.
During his work "in the field", Carnegie fell ill and needed treatment
for sunstroke.
The Civil War, as so many wars before it,
brought boom times to the suppliers of war. The U.S. iron industry was
one such. Before the war its production was of little significance, but
the sudden huge demand brought boom times to Pittsburgh and similar
cities and great wealth to the iron masters.
Carnegie had some investments in this
industry before the war and, after the war, 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 did not totally sever his links with the railroads.
These links would prove valuable. The Keystone Bridge Company made iron
train bridges, and, as company superintendent, Carnegie had noticed the
weakness of the traditional wooden structures. These were replaced in
large numbers with iron bridges made in his works. 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 and to the fullest extent.
Carnegie’s philanthropic inclinations began
some time before retirement. He wrote; "I propose to take an income no
greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no
effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for
benevolent purposes! Let us cast aside business forever, except for
others. Let us settle in Oxford and I shall get a thorough education,
making the acquaintance of literary men. I figure that this will take
three years active work. I shall pay especial attention to speaking in
public. We can settle in London and I can purchase a controlling
interest in some newspaper or live review and give the general
management of it attention, taking part in public matters, especially
those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes.
Man must have an idol and the amassing of wealth is one of the worst
species of idolatry! No idol is more debasing than the worship of money!
Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be
careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its
character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and
with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the
shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will
resign business at thirty-five, but during these ensuing two years I
wish to spend the afternoons in receiving instruction and in reading
systematically!"
Carnegie postponed most of his
philanthropic intentions to "proper old age".
Postwar years, 1865-1880: Carnegie the
investor
In the late 1860’s and into the 1870s,
Carnegie was "out and about and all over the place". Carnegie now had
new investments aside from the iron venture, the Keystone Bridge
Company. Carnegie had added to his investments in Pennsylvania oil
investments in Texas, which earned him a small fortune, and, after the
war, undertook several trips to Europe selling railroad securities on a
commission basis for, among others, the London firm of Junius S. Morgan
& Company. The last of these trips was in 1872, the commission earned
being $150,000. Andrew Carnegie's multiple successes in bond selling,
oil trading, and bridge building were so rapidly successful that the
conservative Pittsburgh business community regarded him with a certain
circumspection. It was during these trips to Europe and to Britain, in
particular, that Carnegie came into contact with British steel makers,
then the world leaders. He obtained a working knowledge of the Bessemer
process of steel making and became a friend of its inventor, Sir Henry
Bessemer.
In 1868, he introduced the Bessemer steel
making process into the U.S.A. and, in 1873, decided on a now famous
gamble. He decided to "put all his eggs in one basket, and then watch
the basket." That year he staked all his wealth on steel making. His
fellow Americans did not realize it at the time, but the day Carnegie
decided to take this gamble was the day the eventual industrial
supremacy of the U.S. became certain. It took Andrew Carnegie only a
matter of a few years to become the principal owner of the Homestead &
Edgar Thompson Steel Works, and only a short time more to be heading the
firms of Carnegie, Phipps & Company andCarnegie Bros. & Company, as
well.
1880-1890: Carnegie the scholar and
activist
Whilst Carnegie continued his business
career, some of his literary intentions were fulfilled. During this
time, he made many friends in the literary and political worlds. Among
these were such as Malcolm Arnold and Herbert Spencer as well as being
in correspondence and acquaintance with most of the U.S. Presidents,
statesmen, and notable writers of the time. Many were visitors to the
Carnegie home. Carnegie greatly admired Herbert Spencer, the polymath
who seemed to know everything. He did not, however, agree with Spencer's
Social Darwinism which held that philanthropy was a bad idea.
In 1881, Andrew Carnegie took his family,
which included his mother, then aged 70, on a trip to Great Britain.
They toured the sights of England and Scotland by coach having several
receptions en-route. The highlight for them all was a triumphal return
to Dunfermline where Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of the
"Carnegie Library". Andrew Carnegie's criticism of British society did
not point to a dislike of the country of his birth, on the contrary, one
of Carnegie's ambitions was to act as a catalyst for a close association
between the English speaking peoples. To this end, he purchased, in the
first part of the 1880's, a number of newspapers in England, all of
which were to advocate the abolition of the monarchy and the
establishment of "the British Republic". Surprisingly, Carnegie's charm
aided by his great wealth meant that he had many British friends,
including Prime Minister Gladstone.
In 1886, tragedy struck Carnegie when his
young brother Thomas died at the early age of 43. Success in the
business continued, however. At the same time as owning steel works,
Carnegie had purchased, at low cost, the most valuable of the iron ore
fields around Lake Superior. The same year Andrew Carnegie became a
figure of controversy. Following his tour of Great Britain, he wrote
about his experiences in a book entitled, An American Four-in-hand in
Britain. Although still actively involved in running his many
businesses, Carnegie had become a regular contributor of articles to
numerous serious minded magazines, most notably the Nineteenth Century,
under the editorship of James Knowles, and the North American Review,
whose editor, Lloyd Bryce, oversaw the publication during its most
influential period.
That year, 1886, Carnegie penned his most
radical work to date, entitled Triumphant Democracy. The work, liberal
in its use of statistics to make its arguments, was an attempt to argue
his view that the American republican system of government was superior
to the British monarchical system. It not only gave a overly-favourable
and idealistic view of American progress, but made some considerable
criticism of the British royal family. Most antagonistic, however, was
the cover that depicted amongst other motifs, an upended royal crown and
a broken sceptre. Given these aspects, it was no surprise that the book
was the cause of some considerable controversy in Great Britain. The
book itself was successful. It made many Americans aware for the first
time of their country's economic progress and sold over 40,000 copies,
mostly in the U.S.A.
In 1889, Carnegie stirred up yet another
hornet's nest when an article entitled "Wealth" appeared in the June
issue of the North American Review. After reading it, Gladstone
requested its publication in England, and it appeared under a new title,
"The Gospel of Wealth" in the Pall Mall Gazette. The article itself was
the subject of much discussion. In the article, the author argued that
the life of a wealthy industrialist such as Carnegie should comprise two
parts. The first part was the gathering and the accumulation of wealth.
The second part was to be used for the subsequent distribution of this
wealth to benevolent causes.
Carnegie the industrialist
1885-1900: Building an empire of steel
But all this was only a preliminary to the
success attending his development of the iron and steel industries at
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 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. His great
innovation was in the cheap and efficient mass production of steel rails
for railroad lines.
In the late 1880s, Carnegie Steel was the
largest manufacturer of pig-iron, steel-rails, and coke in the world,
with a capacity to produce approximately 2,000 tons of pig-metal a day.
In 1888, he bought the rival Homestead Steel Works, which included an
extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a railway 425
miles long, and a line of lake steamships. An agglutination of the
assets of he and his associates occurred in 1892 with the launching of
the Carnegie Steel Company.
By 1889, the U.S. output of steel exceeded
that of the U.K., and Andrew Carnegie owned a large part of it. Carnegie
had risen to the heights he had by being a supreme organiser and judge
of men. He had the talent of being able to surround himself with able
and effective men, while, at the same time, retaining the control and
the direction of the enterprise. Carnegie's businesses were uniquely
organised in that his belief in "democratic principles" found itself
interpreted into these businesses. This did not mean that Carnegie was
not in absolute control, however. The businesses incorporated Carnegie's
own version of profit sharing. Carnegie wanted his employees to have a
stake in the business, for he knew that they would work best if they saw
that their own self interest was allied to the firm's. As a result, men
who had started as labourers in some cases, eventually ended up
millionaires. Carnegie also often encouraged unfriendly competition
between two of his workers and goaded them into outdoing one another.
These rivalries became so important to some of the workers that they
wouldn't talk to each other for years. Carnegie maintained control by
incorporating his enterprises not as joint stock corporations but as
limited partnerships with Carnegie as majority and controlling partner.
Not a cent of stock was publicly sold. If a member died or retired, his
stock was purchased at book value by the company. Similarly, the other
partners could vote to call in stock from those partners who
underperformed, forcing them to resign.
The internal organisation of his businesses
was not the only reason for Andrew Carnegie's rise to pre-eminence.
Carnegie introduced the concept of counter-cyclical investment.
Carnegie's competitors, along with virtually every other business
enterprise across the globe, pursued the conventional strategy of
procyclical investment; manufacturers reinvesting profits in new capital
in times of boom and high demand. Because demand is high, investment in
bull markets is is more expensive. In response, Carnegie developed and
implemented a secret tactic. He shifted the purchasing cycle of his
companies to slump times, when business was depressed and prices low.
Carnegie observed that business cycles alternated between "boom" and
"bust". He saw that if he capitalized during a slump, his costs would be
lower and profits higher. During the years 1893 to 1897, there was a
great slump in economic demand, and so Carnegie made his move. At rock
bottom prices, he upgraded his entire operation with the latest and most
cost effective steel mills. When demand picked up, prosperity followed
for the Homestead & Edgar Thompson Steel Works, the Carnegie, Phipps &
Company, and Carnegie Bros. & Company as a flood tide of profit. In
1900, the profits of Carnegie Bros. & Company alone stood at $40,000,000
with $25,000,000 being Carnegie's share.
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. Also,
Carnegie, through Keystone, supplied the steel for and owned shares in
the landmark Eads Bridge project across the Mississippi River in 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.
1901: The formation of U.S. Steel
In 1901, Carnegie was now 65 years old and
was wanting to retire. He reformed his enterprises into conventional
joint stock corporations as preparation to this end. Carnegie, however,
wanted a good price for his stock. There was a man who was to give him
his price. This man was John Pierpont Morgan.
Morgan was a banker and perhaps America's
most important financial deal maker. He had observed how efficiency
produced profit. He envisioned an integrated steel industry that would
cut costs, lower prices to consumers and raise wages to workers. To this
end he needed to buy out Carnegie and several other major producers, and
integrate them all into one company thereby eliminating duplication and
waste. Negotiations were concluded on 2nd March with the formation of
the United States Steel Corporation. It was the first corporation in the
world with a market capitalization in excess of $1,000,000,000.
The buyout, which was negotiated in secret
by Charles M. Schwab (no relation to Charles R. Schwab, the brokerage
house founder), was the largest such industrial takeover in United
States history to date. The holdings were incorporated in the United
States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by J. P. Morgan, and
Carnegie himself retired from business. His steel enterprises were
bought out at a figure equivalent to twelve times their annual earnings;
$480 million, which at the time was the largest ever personal commercial
transaction. Andrew Carnegie's share of this amounted to a massive
$225,639,000 which was paid to Carnegie in the form of 5%, 50 year gold
bonds. The letter agreeing to sell his share was signed on the 26th
February, 1901. On the 2nd March 1901, the circular formally filing the
organisation and capitalisation (at $1,400,000,000 - 4% of U.S national
wealth at the time) of the United States Steel Corporation actually
completed the contract. The bonds were to be delivered within two weeks
to the Hudson Trust Company of Hoboken, New Jersey in trust to Robert A.
Franks, Carnegie's business secretary. There, a special vault was built
to house the physical bulk of nearly $230,000,000 worth of bonds. It was
said that "....Carnegie never wanted to see or touch these bonds that
represented the fruition of his business career. It was as if he feared
that if he looked upon them they might vanish like the gossamer gold of
the leprechaun. Let them lie safe in a vault in New Jersey, safe from
the New York tax assessors, until he was ready to dispose of them...."
As they signed the papers of sale, Carnegie
remarked, "Well, Pierpont, I am now handing the burden over to you." In
return, Andrew Carnegie became one of the world's wealthiest men.
Retirement was a stage in life that many men dreaded. However, Carnegie
was not one of them. He was looking forward to retirement, for it was
his intention to follow a new course from then on.
Besides steel, Carnegie's companies were
involved in other areas of the railroad industry. His company,
Pittsburgh Locomotive and Car Works, was noted for its building of large
steam locomotives at the turn of the 20th century. His associates and
partners included Henry Clay Frick and F. T. F. Lovejoy.
He owned 18 English newspapers, which he
controlled in the interests of radicalism.
At the height of his career, he was the
second richest person in the world, behind only John D. Rockefeller.
1901-1915: Carnegie the philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie spent his last years as a
philanthropist. From 1901 forward, public attention was turned from the
shrewd business capacity which had enabled Carnegie to accumulate such a
fortune, to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to
utilizing it on philanthropic objects. His views on social subjects and
the responsibilities which great wealth involved were already known from
Triumphant Democracy (1886), and from his "Gospel of Wealth" (1900). He
acquired Skibo Castle, in Sutherland, Scotland, and made his home partly
there and partly in New York and then devoted his life to the work of
providing the capital for purposes of public interest and social and
educational advancement.
In all his ideas, he was dominated by an
intense belief in the future and influence of the English-speaking
people, in their democratic government and alliance for the purpose of
peace and the abolition of war, and in the progress of education on
nonsectarian lines. He was a powerful supporter of the movement for
spelling reform as a means of promoting the spread of the English
language.
Among all of his many philanthropic
efforts, the establishment of public libraries in the United States, the
United Kingdom, and in other English-speaking countries was especially
prominent. Carnegie libraries, as they were commonly called, sprang up
on all sides. The first of which was opened in 1883 in Dunfermline,
Scotland. His method was to build and equip, but only on condition that
the local authority provided site and maintenance. To secure local
interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh for a public library,
and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City for a music hall and
library, and $250,000 to Edinburgh, Scotland, for a free library. In
total Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in every U.S. state
except Alaska, and Delaware. Carnegie also built libraries in Canada and
overseas in Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies,
and Fiji.
He gave $2 million in 1901 to start the
Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh and the same amount
in 1902 to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C.. He would
later contribute more to these and other schools. CIT is now part of
Carnegie Mellon University.
In Scotland, he gave $2 million in 1901 to
establish a trust for providing funds for assisting education at the
Scottish universities, a benefaction which resulted in his being elected
Lord Rector of University of St. Andrews. He was a large benefactor of
the Tuskegee Institute under Booker Washington for African American
education. He also established large pension funds in 1901 for his
former employees at Homestead and, in 1905, for American college
professors. He also funded the construction of 7,000 church organs.
Carnegie's birthplace in Scotland is now a
museum.Also, long before he sold out, in 1879, he erected commodious
swimming-baths for the use of the people of his hometown of Dunfermline,
Scotland. In the following year, Carnegie gave $40,000 for the
establishment of a free library in the same city. In 1884, he gave
$50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College to found a histological
laboratory, now called the Carnegie Laboratory.
He owned Carnegie Hall in New York City
from its construction in 1890 until his widow sold it in 1924.
He also founded the Carnegie Hero Fund
commissions in America (1904) and in the United Kingdom (1908) for the
recognition of deeds of heroism, contributed $500,000 in 1903 for the
erection of a Peace Palace at The Hague, and donated $150,000 for a
Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau
of American Republics.
By the rough and ready standards of 19th
century tycoons, Carnegie was not a particularly ruthless man, but the
contrast between his life and the lives of many of his own workers and
of the poor, in general, was stark. "Maybe with the giving away of his
money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had
done to get that money."
By the time he died in Lenox,
Massachusetts, Carnegie had given away $350,695,653. At his death, the
last $30,000,000 was likewise given away to foundations, charities, and
to pensioners.
He is interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in
Sleepy Hollow, New York.
Later personal life
In an era in which financial capital was
consolidated in New York City, Carnegie famously stayed aloof from the
city, preferring to live near his factories in western Pennsylvania and
at Skibo Castle, Scotland, which he bought and refurbished. However, he
also built (in 1901) and resided in a townhouse on New York City's Fifth
Avenue that later came to house Cooper-Hewitt's National Design Museum.
Carnegie married Louise Whitfield in 1887
and had one daughter, Margaret, who was born in 1897. His brother,
Thomas M. Carnegie, also born in Dunfermline, Scotland, was born on
October 2, 1843. He was associated with Andrew in his business
enterprises, but died in Homewood, Pennsylvania, on October 19, 1886.
Controversial aspects of Carnegie's life
1892: The Homestead strike
The Homestead Strike was a bloody labor
confrontation lasting one-hundred and forty-three days in 1892 and was
one of the most serious in the history of the United States. The
conflict was situated around Carnegie Steel's main Homestead,
Pennsylvania plant and grew out of disputation between the National
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers of the United States
and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie, who had cultivated a pro-labor
image in his dealings with company mill workers, departed the country
for a trip to his Scottish homeland before the unrest peaked. In doing
so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate
and partner Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrialist
circles as maintaining staunch anti-union sensibilities.
The company had attempted to cut the wages
of the skilled steel workers, and, when the workers refused the pay cut,
management locked the union out (workers considered the stoppage a
"lockout" by management and not a "strike" by workers). Frick brought in
thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and Pinkerton agents
to safeguard them.
The arrival, on the 6th of July, of a force
of three hundred Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago
resulted in a fight in which ten men - seven strikers and three
Pinkertons - were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania
Governor Robert Pattison discharged two brigades of the state militia to
the strike site. Then, allegedly in response to the fight between the
striking workers and the Pinkertons, anarchist Alexander Berkman tried
to kill Henry Clay Frick with a gun provided by Emma Goldman. However,
Frick was only wounded, and the attempt turned public opinion away from
the striking workers. Afterwards, the company successfully resumed
operations with non-unionized immigrant employees in place of the
Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned stateside.
Carnegie was one of over 50 wealthy members
of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which was blamed for the
Johnstown Flood that killed over 2,200 people in 1887.
Philosophy
Carnegie wrote The Gospel of Wealth, in
which he stated his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help
enrich society.
The following is taken from one of
Carnegie's memos to himself:
Man does not live by bread alone. I have
known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can
sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called
poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires
to reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so
pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. Money
can only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself.
Exalted beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and
still plays the beast. My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it
to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to
the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of
the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest
possible use of wealth.
Carnegie also believed that achievement of
financial success could be reduced to a simple formula, which could be
duplicated by the average person. In 1908, he commissioned Napoleon
Hill, then a newspaper reporter, to interview over 500 millionaires to
find out the common threads of their success. Hill eventually became his
adviser, and their work was published in 1928, after Carnegie's death,
in Hill's book The Law of Success.
Writings
Carnegie was a frequent contributor to
periodicals on labour issues.
In addition to Triumphant Democracy (1886),
Gospel of Wealth (1900) and The Law of Success (1928), other
publications by him were An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883),
Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), a Life of James
Watt (1905) and Problems of To-day (1908).
Trivia
Various sources quote Carnegie's height at
5 feet (1.524 metre) 5 feet 1" (1.549 metre) 5 feet 2" (1.578 metre) or
5 feet 3" (1.6 metre) - there is even one at 5 feet 6" (1.676 metres) -
but this must be considered as being incorrect - in other words; he was
short.
Two municipalities in the United States are
named after Andrew Carnegie, the most famous being Carnegie, PA. The
other is Carnegie, OK.
The dinosaur Diplodocus carnegiei (Hatcher)
was named for Andrew Carnegie after he sponsored the expedition that
discovered its remains in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Utah.
Carnegie was so proud of “Dippi” that he had casts made of the bones and
plaster replicas of the whole skeleton donated to several museums in
Europe. The original fossil skeleton is assembled and stands in the Hall
of Dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh,
PA.
****
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