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Carnegie became one of the richest men in the world thanks to his work in the steel industry.

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Carnegie was born in Scotland to a poor family and emigrated to America with his parents and his brother at a young age.

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Andrew Carnegie was a self-made steel tycoon and one of the wealthiest businessmen of 19th century. He later dedicated his life to philanthropic endeavors.

Synopsis

Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland. After moving to the United States, he worked a series of railroad jobs. By 1889 he owned Carnegie Steel Corporation, the largest of its kind in the world. In 1901 he sold his business and dedicated his time to expanding his philanthropic work, including the establishment of Carnegie-Mellon University in 1904.

Early Life

Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. Although he had little formal education, Carnegie grew up in a family that believed in the importance of books and learning. The son of a handloom weaver, Carnegie grew up to become one of the wealthiest businessmen in America.

At the age of 13, in 1848, Carnegie came to the United States with his family. They settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and Carnegie went to work in a factory, earning $1.20 a week. The next year he found a job as a telegraph messenger. Hoping to advance his career, he moved up to a telegraph operator position in 1851. He then took a job at the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1853. He worked as the assistant and telegrapher to Thomas Scott, one of the railroad's top officials. Through this experience, he learned about the railroad industry and about business in general. Three years later, Carnegie was promoted to superintendent.

Steel Tycoon

While working for the railroad, Carnegie began making investments. He made many wise choices and found that his investments, especially those in oil, brought in substantial returns. He left the railroad in 1865 to focus on his other business interests, including the Keystone Bridge Company.

By the next decade, most of Carnegie's time was dedicated to the steel industry. His business, which became known as the Carnegie Steel Company, revolutionized steel production in the United States. Carnegie built plants around the country, using technology and methods that made manufacturing steel easier, faster and more productive. For every step of the process, he owned exactly what he needed: the raw materials, ships and railroads for transporting the goods, and even coal fields to fuel the steel furnaces.

This start-to-finish strategy helped Carnegie become the dominant force in the industry and an exceedingly wealthy man. It also made him known as one of America's "builders," as his business helped to fuel the economy and shape the nation into what it is today. By 1889, Carnegie Steel Corporation was the largest of its kind in the world.

Some felt that the company's success came at the expense of its workers. The most notable case of this came in 1892. When the company tried to lower wages at a Carnegie Steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, the employees objected. They refused to work, starting what has been called the Homestead Strike of 1892. The conflict between the workers and local managers turned violent after the managers called in guards to break up the union. While Carnegie was away at the time of strike, many still held him accountable for his managers' actions.

Philanthropy

In 1901, Carnegie made a dramatic change in his life. He sold his business to the United States Steel Corporation, started by legendary financier J.P. Morgan. The sale earned him more than $200 million. At the age of 65, Carnegie decided to spend the rest of his days helping others. While he had begun his philanthropic work years earlier by building libraries and making donations, Carnegie expanded his efforts in the early 20th century.

Carnegie, an avid reader for much of his life, donated approximately $5 million to the New York Public Library so that the library could open several branches in 1901. Devoted to learning, he established the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, which is now known as Carnegie-Mellon University in 1904. The next year, he created the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1905. With his strong interest to peace, he formed the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910. He made numerous other donations, and it is said that more than 2,800 libraries were opened with his support.

Besides his business and charitable interests, Carnegie enjoyed traveling and meeting and entertaining leading figures in many fields. He was friends with Matthew Arnold, Mark Twain, William Gladstone, and Theodore Roosevelt. Carnegie also wrote several books and numerous articles. His 1889 article "Wealth" outlined his view that those with great wealth must be socially responsible and use their assets to help others. This was later published as the 1900 book The Gospel of Wealth.

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Andrew Carnegie was a self-made steel tycoon and one of the wealthiest businessmen of 19th century. He later dedicated his life to philanthropic endeavors. Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland. After moving to the United States, he worked a series of railroad jobs.

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Read or listen to this NPR feature on Carnegie and his library legacy.

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Andrew Carnegie was once the richest man in the world. Coming as a dirt poor kid from Scotland to the U.S., by the 1880s he'd built an empire in steel - and then gave it all away: $60 million to fund a system of 1,689 public libraries across the country.

Carnegie donated $300,000 to build Washington, D.C.'s oldest library - a beautiful beaux arts building that dates back to 1903. Inscribed above the doorway are the words: Science, Poetry, History. The building was "dedicated to the diffusion of knowledge."

It opened in 1903 to women, children, all races - African-Americans remember when it was the only place downtown where they could use the bathrooms. During the Depression, D.C.'s Carnegie Library was called "the intellectual breadline." No one had any money, so you went there to feed your brain. Washington writer Paul Dickson, author of The Library in America, says the marble palace was an early and imposing Capitol institution.

"This went in well before the monumental limestone and marble buildings of Pennsylvania Avenue, Constitution Avenue. This was one of the first really beautiful public buildings," he says.

Carnegie libraries are still the best buildings in many towns. Over the years some have been expanded or torn down. And, in addition to books and computers, Carnegie libraries find new ways to serve the community.

The public library in Woodbine, Iowa, loans cake pans - people don't keep all sizes and shapes of cake pans at home, "so they check 'em out and bake their cakes and bring 'em back," explains Woodbine library director Rita Bantam. "[It's] offering a service that people need. It brings people into the library."

Andrew Carnegie gave $7,500 to Woodbine. That paid for the 1908 building itself. The towns had to raise money for books, salaries and maintenance. Before Carnegie, Bantam says, the library was located in an unusual section of Woodbine's town hall: "It was over the jail," she explains, "they had to close the library when the jail was occupied."

From jail to cakepans, public libraries are embedded in their communities. In South Carolina, the Union County Carnegie Library - named best small library in America a few years back - invites Ronald McDonald over to lure kids into summer reading programs. Director Ben Loftis says there were subscription libraries in South Carolina before 1903 when his was built - with a $10,000 Carnegie grant - but this was the first public library.

"It went from being for just the wealthy elite landowners and planters to actually being a service for the entire county that everybody has access to," he says.

It was pioneering - public and free. Those were the visionary keystones of Carnegie's library mission. The mission was born in Allegheny City, Pa., where Carnegie worked as a bobbin boy in a textile mill - his job was to fill the bobbins with thread and oil them for the machines. He was determined to improve his lot, but he couldn't pay the $2 subscription for a local library that was available only to apprentices (and he certainly couldn't afford to buy books).

He sent a letter to the library administrator asking for access to the library, but the administrator turned him down flat. So 17-year-old Andy got the letter published in The Pittsburgh Dispatch.

"He made his case so well that the administrator backed off immediately," explains Carnegie biographer David Nasaw. "And the library was opened to working men as well as apprentices. He got what he wanted."

The man who dies rich dies in disgrace.

He usually did. Quick, smart and self-educated, "the little Scotsman from Pittsburgh" went from bobbins to telegraphs to railroads to iron and steel. In 1901, when he sold Carnegie Steel to J.P. Morgan for almost half a billion dollars, it became part of U.S. Steel - and Carnegie became the world's richest man. And then he gave it away: a total of $350 million.

Was he the Bill Gates of his day? "I think Bill Gates would very much like to be known as the Carnegie of his day," says Nasaw.

In 1889 Carnegie wrote an article called "The Gospel of Wealth," in which he spelled out his views on philanthropy: "In bestowing charity the main consideration should be to help those who help themselves."

The rich should give, so the poor could improve their own lives - and thus the lives of the society. Giving was a code of honor. "The man who dies rich dies in disgrace," Carnegie said.

Nasaw says the steel master was in his 30s when he decided he was merely the shepherd of his wealth.

"It is his responsibility to give it back," Nasaw says, "to return it to the community because the community - all of those men and women who contribute to the making of Carnegie steel, the mothers who feed their children, the day laborers, the whole large community - is responsible for making this wealth and they're the ones who have to get it back."

So public libraries became instruments of change - not luxuries, but rather necessities, important institutions - as vital to the community as police and fire stations and public schools.

Now, Carnegie was a complicated man. Brilliant, charming, generous - and brutal. Carnegie biographer Les Standiford, author of Meet You in Hell, says the industrialist presided over what is considered this country's most bitter labor dispute.

"The Homestead Steel Strike of 1892 - in which he and Henry Clay Frick conspired to mercilessly beat down the steelworkers who were striking for better pay and better working conditions. It stands to this day as the worst labor conflict in American history," Standiford says.

"Increase our wages," the workers demanded. "What good is a book to a man who works 12 hours a day, six days a week?"

Nasaw says Carnegie thought he knew better and replied to his critics this way: "If I had raised your wages, you would have spent that money by buying a better cut of meat or more drink for your dinner. But what you needed, though you didn't know it, was my libraries and concert halls. And that's what I'm giving to you."

And so he did: 1,689 public libraries. Temples of learning, ambition, aspiration for towns and cities throughout the United States.
How do you use your local public library? Please tell us in the comments below.

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How Andrew Carnegie Turned His Fortune Into A Library Legacy

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Andrew Carnegie was once the richest man in the world. Coming as a dirt poor kid from Scotland to the U.S., by the 1880s he'd built an empire in steel - and then gave it all away: $60 million to fund a system of 1,689 public libraries across the country.

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* What personal attributes contributed to Andrew Carnegie's success?
* Why might some be critical of Carnegie's role as an Industrialist in Pittsburgh?
* What was unique about the criteria set by Carnegie as he funded libraries?