Andrew Carnegie

BIOGRAPHY OF ANDREW CARNEGIE

By: Kevin Taylor

Andrew Carnegie was an American industrialist but was native to Scotland. Born in Dunfermline, Fifeshire, Scotland, on November 15, 1835 Andrew was the first son of son of William and Margaret Carnegie. Young Andrew's family was very political; father William was the local leader of the Chartists who fought to improve living conditions of the working-class community in Great Britain and his grandfather was a social and political reformer. In 1848 the family packed up and headed for the New World eventually settling in Allegheny, Pennsylvania.

Andrew Carnegie was a true rags to riches story. When he was thirteen he started working, first as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory, then as a telegraph messenger boy then as a telegraph operator in the Pennsylvania Railroad. He soon became superintendent of his division. His first company was co-owned by Mr. Woodruff, the inventor of the sleeping car, in The Woodruff Sleeping Car Company, which made the core of his future fortunes. Oil investments and jobs for the government during the Civil War followed. Mr. Carnegie owned many businesses's after that with the most profitable one being the Carnegie Steel Company which he sold to J.P. Morgan for $480 million in 1901 making him the richest man in the world at the time.

Carnegie was a believer that the wealthy had an obligation to give their fortune to the community except what they needed for a comfortable life. When Andrew was a working boy in Pittsburgh there was a Colonel who shared his private library of books to the working boys. Andrew took every chance to further his learning and obtained most of his knowledge from the library of books. So when Carnegie was rich and ready to share it, he spent $60 million to create over 3,000 public libraries throughout Scotland, America, and England. Also,