Abstract
Andrew Carnegie was born November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland, fourteen miles north of Edinburgh, into the family of a poor weaver. His father, a man of deep feeling and community spirit, was experiencing displacement and discouragement because the steam driven looms of the industrial age were making his craft obsolete. At the age of 13, Andy, his mother, father, and brother Tom immigrated to the United States and settled in Pittsburgh. On August 11, 1919, at the age of eighty-three, Andrew Carnegie died, leaving an estate of $30 million. This is a substantial amount of money for anyone to accumulate in their lifetime, even today. However, this was only a small part of the fortune that Andrew Carnegie amassed during his lifetime and a small part of the story of Mr. Carnegie's life. In his later years, Andrew Carnegie tenaciously pursued philanthropy at an unheralded pace. Having built successively larger fortunes at each stage of his life, at the time of his death he had given away in excess of $350 million. This was consistent with his personal belief that it was a disgrace to die rich and that the accumulation of wealth should be purposeful and advance the condition of humankind.
Recommended Citation
Gould, Sam
(1995)
"Andrew Carnegie: Scottish Immigrant, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist,"
University of Dayton Review: Vol. 23:
No.
3, Article 5.
Available at:
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/udr/vol23/iss3/5
