Carnegie, Andrew

Carnegie, Andrew (1835-1919), American steel manufacturer, b. Dunfermline, Scotland.

Carnegie's family emigrated to the United States when he was thirteen.

Andrew started work in a cotton factory, earning one dollar twenty cents a week.

Then he became in turn a telegraph operator, railway clerk and district manager of a railway company.

By 1864, he was running companies making railroads, locomotives and iron bridges, and nine years later, he opened a steel works.

He retired in 1901 with a fortune said to be of 500-million dollars.

Afterwards, he gave away large sums of money to schools and universities and for the building of libraries.

More than 2,500 free public libraries were built with his money in the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries.

In New York he built the world famous Carnegie Hall for music lovers and he gave his home town of Dunfermline a large park and 2.5 million dollars to start the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust. The Trust is still active today. It has provided Dunfermline with swimming pools, playing fields, golf courses, bowling greens, children's clinics, a physical education college and a craft school. The Trust runs an annual festival of music and the arts and gives money to clubs and societies in the town.

See Kathleen Fidler The man who gave away millions;: The story of Andrew Carnegie