essay on andrew carnegie

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Andrew Carnegie

By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 9, 2021 | Original: November 9, 2009

Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was an American industrialist who amassed a fortune in the steel industry then became a major philanthropist. Carnegie worked in a Pittsburgh cotton factory as a boy before rising to the position of division superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1859. 

While working for the railroad, he invested in various ventures, including iron and oil companies, and made his first fortune by the time he was in his early 30s. In the early 1870s, he entered the steel business, and over the next two decades became a dominant force in the industry. In 1901, he sold the Carnegie Steel Company to banker John Pierpont Morgan for $480 million. Carnegie then devoted himself to philanthropy, eventually giving away more than $350 million.

Andrew Carnegie: Early Life and Career

Andrew Carnegie, whose life became a rags-to-riches story, was born into modest circumstances on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland, the second of two sons of Will, a handloom weaver, and Margaret, who did sewing work for local shoemakers. In 1848, the Carnegie family (who pronounced their name “carNEgie”) moved to America in search of better economic opportunities and settled in Allegheny City (now part of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania . Andrew Carnegie, whose formal education ended when he left Scotland, where he had no more than a few years’ schooling, soon found employment as a bobbin boy at a cotton factory, earning $1.20 a week.

Did you know? During the U.S. Civil War, Andrew Carnegie was drafted for the Army; however, rather than serve, he paid another man $850 to report for duty in his place, a common practice at the time.

Ambitious and hard-working, he went on to hold a series of jobs, including messenger in a telegraph office and secretary and telegraph operator for the superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1859, Carnegie succeeded his boss as railroad division superintendent. While in this position, he made profitable investments in a variety of businesses, including coal, iron and oil companies and a manufacturer of railroad sleeping cars.

After leaving his post with the railroad in 1865, Carnegie continued his ascent in the business world. With the U.S. railroad industry then entering a period of rapid growth, he expanded his railroad-related investments and founded such ventures as an iron bridge building company (Keystone Bridge Company) and a telegraph firm, often using his connections to win insider contracts. By the time he was in his early 30s, Carnegie had become a very wealthy man.

Andrew Carnegie: Steel Magnate

In the early 1870s, Carnegie co-founded his first steel company, near Pittsburgh. Over the next few decades, he created a steel empire, maximizing profits and minimizing inefficiencies through ownership of factories, raw materials and transportation infrastructure involved in steel making. In 1892, his primary holdings were consolidated to form Carnegie Steel Company.

The steel magnate considered himself a champion of the working man; however, his reputation was marred by the violent Homestead Strike in 1892 at his Homestead, Pennsylvania, steel mill. After union workers protested wage cuts, Carnegie Steel general manager Henry Clay Frick (1848-1919), who was determined to break the union, locked the workers out of the plant. 

Andrew Carnegie was on vacation in Scotland during the strike, but put his support in Frick, who called in some 300 Pinkerton armed guards to protect the plant. A bloody battle broke out between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, leaving at least 10 men dead. The state militia then was brought in to take control of the town, union leaders were arrested and Frick hired replacement workers for the plant. After five months, the strike ended with the union’s defeat. Additionally, the labor movement at Pittsburgh-area steel mills was crippled for the next four decades.

In 1901, banker John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) purchased Carnegie Steel for some $480 million, making Andrew Carnegie one of the world’s richest men. That same year, Morgan merged Carnegie Steel with a group of other steel businesses to form U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation.

READ MORE: Andrew Carnegie Claimed to Support Unions, But Then Destroyed Them in His Steel Empire

Andrew Carnegie: Philanthropist

After Carnegie sold his steel company, the diminutive titan, who stood 5’3”, retired from business and devoted himself full-time to philanthropy. In 1889, he had penned an essay, “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he stated that the rich have “a moral obligation to distribute [their money] in ways that promote the welfare and happiness of the common man.” Carnegie also said, “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.”

Carnegie eventually gave away some $350 million (the equivalent of billions in today’s dollars), which represented the bulk of his wealth. Among his philanthropic activities, he funded the establishment of more than 2,500 public libraries around the globe, donated more than 7,600 organs to churches worldwide and endowed organizations (many still in existence today) dedicated to research in science, education, world peace and other causes. 

Among his gifts was the $1.1 million required for the land and construction costs of Carnegie Hall, the legendary New York City concert venue that opened in 1891. The Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Foundation were all founded thanks to his financial gifts. A lover of books, he was the largest individual investor in public libraries in American history.

Andrew Carnegie: Family and Final Years

Carnegie’s mother, who was a major influence in his life, lived with him until her death in 1886. The following year, the 51-year-old industrial baron married Louise Whitfield (1857-1946), who was two decades his junior and the daughter of a New York City merchant. The couple had one child, Margaret (1897-1990). The Carnegies lived in a Manhattan mansion and spent summers in Scotland, where they owned Skibo Castle, set on some 28,000 acres.

Carnegie died at age 83 on August 11, 1919, at Shadowbrook, his estate in Lenox, Massachusetts . He was buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in North Tarrytown, New York.

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The Gospel Of Wealth

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Summary: “the gospel of wealth”.

Andrew Carnegie wrote “The Gospel of Wealth” in June 1889. Carnegie begins his treatise by identifying what he sees as the most significant problem of modern-day times: “the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship” (1).

Carnegie mentions that, in the past, “there was little difference” (1) between the living situations of a leader of a community and those of the members of the community. To prove his point, Carnegie writes about a memory of “visiting the Sioux” (1); during this visit, he noticed that the residence of the chief looked “just like the others in external appearance” (1). Carnegie compares the living situations of the Sioux with the difference between “the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to-day” (1) to demonstrate the changes in American society that have taken place over the years. These changes are not negative, but “essential for the progress of the [human] race” (2). After all, Carnegie points out, “the ‘good old times’ were not good old times” (2) and besides, “whether the change be for good or ill, it is upon us, beyond our power to alter” (2).

According to Carnegie, the explanation for the change can be found in “the manufacture of product” (3), which requires a very different process now than before, when “[t]he master and apprentice worked side by side, the latter living with the master, and therefore subject to the same conditions” (3). Now that products can be manufactured more quickly and easily thanks to industrialization, “[t]he poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford” (4). The price society pays for this change is steep: because the employee and the employer no longer work together, and, in fact, because “[a]ll intercourse between them is at an end” (5), friction between the two often results.

Similar to the price society pays for cheaper goods is the “price which society pays for the law of competition” (6). Despite the costly nature of competition, “while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department” (6). At least, the most talented people “soon create capital” (6), and some of these people “become interested in firms or corporations using millions” (6); they soon accumulate wealth, as it is essential that “successful operation[…]should be thus far profitable” (6).

Carnegie points out that objectors to this capitalist system, such as “the Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions” (7), compromise civilization as a whole when they challenge “the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions” (7). The individualism that movements like communism seek to destroy is “what is practicable now” (7). More importantly, the “destruction of the highest existing type of man” (7) means the destruction of “the highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit” (7). With this assertion in mind, Carnegie is certain that “the only question with which we have to deal” (8) is this one: “What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few?” (8).

Carnegie specifies three ways excess wealth can be put to use. The first concerns the case of inheritance, when the wealth is left to surviving family members, which Carnegie considers to be “the most injudicious” (9). He uses the examples of European traditions of inheritance that fail “to maintain the status of an hereditary class” (9) to support his argument, believing the practice to be a form of “misguided affection” (9) towards one’s children. There is a possibility that “millionaires’ sons unspoiled by wealth” (10) will do good with the money they have not earned, but sadly, such sons “are rare” (10). Besides, if a wealthy man is honest with himself, he will “admit to himself that it is not the welfare of the children, but family pride, which inspires these enormous legacies” (10).

The second way wealth can be spent is by “leaving wealth at death for public uses” (11), which is only useful “provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of much good in the world” (11). Carnegie believes that these attempts at performing “posthumous good” (11) can often be thwarted and “become only monuments of his folly” (11). Even worse perhaps, “[m]en who leave vast sums in this way may fairly be thought men who would not have left it at all, had they been able to take it with them” (11).

Carnegie observes that the heavy taxes levied on large inheritances in both the United States and in Britain “is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutory change in public opinion” (12). These taxes are proof of the state’s “condemnation of the selfish millionaire’s unworthy life” (12). In fact, “nations should go much further in this direction” and “such taxes should be graduated” until the “millionaire’s hoard” becomes the property of the state (13). This approach “would work powerfully to induce the rich man to the administration of wealth during his life” (13), which is the most beneficial option for society.

Only one of Carnegie’s identified three ways of using excess wealth is acceptable to him, and “in this we have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of rich and poor” (14). Carnegie promises “an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense the property of the many” (14). His solution is far superior to the distribution of the money “in small quantities among the people, which would have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite” (15). The solution Carnegie proposes is best exemplified by Mr. Cooper’s personally-funded Cooper Institute and by “Mr. Tilden’s bequest of five millions of dollars for a free library” (16). Though it would have been better had Mr. Tilden “devoted the last years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum” (16), in order to avoid interference from other interested parties, the benefit of the library to the people is more than if the “millions been allowed to circulate in small sums through the hands of the masses” (16).

Because rich men are more fortunate than most others, they should be grateful for their opportunities to “organize benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives” (17). By living by the example of Christ, “laboring for the good of our fellows” (17), such men will fulfill “the duty of the man of Wealth” (18). Living unpretentiously and providing for his dependents are essential, but the rich man must also “consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds” (18), revenues that must “produce the most beneficial results for the community” (18). In this way, the man of wealth becomes “agent and trustee for his poorer brethren” (18), serving them with “his superior wisdom […] doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves” (18).

Though the process of deciding on appropriate amounts of money to leave family members is challenging, wealthy men can apply “[t]he rule in regard to good taste in the dress of men or women,” as “[w]hatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon” (19). When putting surplus wealth to use or when determining how much to bequeath to heirs, avoiding the appearance of extravagance is crucial.

Research foundations like the Cooper Institute and the prospect of a public library are both examples of “the best uses to which surplus wealth can be put” (20). After all, Carnegie believes that “one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity” (20), which only “encourage[s] the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy” (20). This kind of spending he compares to the act of throwing money into the sea. To reinforce this point, Carnegie describes the selfishness of a writer who gave a man on the street money, though “[the writer] had every reason to suspect that it would be spent improperly” (20). This writer “only gratified his own feelings, [and] saved himself from annoyance” (20) when he gave the man money, a decision that Carnegie describes as “probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his life” (20).

When giving money to charity, “the main consideration would be to help those who will help themselves” (21). Carnegie is certain that no one benefits from indiscriminate assistance; in fact, those who are “worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance” (21). Carnegie goes on to define the true social reformer as someone who is careful “not to aid the unworthy” (21) and thereby rewards vice.

Rich men can follow the example of such tycoons as “Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator Stamford and others” (22), all of whom understand that their most useful contributions to society take the form of “parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste, and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people” (22).

This solution solves “the problem of Rich and Poor” (23), allowing individualism to flourish while the millionaires use their money wisely, “administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself” (23). Carnegie predicts that “the man who dies leaving behind many millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during life, will pass away ‘unwept, unhonored, and unsung’” (23). With this prediction, Carnegie concludes his treatise, calling his piece “the true Gospel concerning Wealth” (24) that will “bring Peace on earth, among men Good-Will” (24).

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Andrew Carnegie

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Andrew Carnegie

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

(1835-1919)

Who Was Andrew Carnegie?

After moving to the United States from Scotland, Andrew Carnegie 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.

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 .

Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts, at the age of 83.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Andrew Carnegie
• Birth Year: 1835
• Birth date: November 25, 1835
• Birth City: Dunfermline, Scotland
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Andrew Carnegie was a self-made steel tycoon and one of the wealthiest businessmen of the 19th century. He later dedicated his life to philanthropic endeavors.
• Business and Industry
• Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
• Death Year: 1919
• Death date: August 11, 1919
• Death State: Massachusetts
• Death City: Lenox
• Death Country: United States

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Andrew Carnegie Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/business-leaders/andrew-carnegie
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 26, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
• The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.
• I cannot tell you how proud I was when I received my first week's own earnings. One dollar and twenty cents made by myself and given to me because I had been of some use in the world!
• I always liked the idea of being my own master, of manufacturing something and giving employment to many men.
• In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves.
• I should as soon leave to my son a curse as the almighty dollar.
• No party is so foolish as to nominate for the presidency a rich man, much less a millionaire. Democracy elects poor men.
• There is always room at the top in every pursuit. Concentrate all your thought and energy upon the performance of your duties. Put all your eggs into one basket and then watch that basket.
• Do not make riches, but usefulness, your first aim.
• I congratulate poor young men upon being born to that ancient and honorable degree which renders it necessary that they should devote themselves to hard work.
• The aim of the millionaire should be, first, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display and extravagances.

Andrew Carnegie and the Creation of U.S. Steel

Written by: john steele gordon, independent historian, by the end of this section, you will:.

• Explain the effects of technological advances in the development of the United States over time
• Explain the socioeconomic continuities and changes associated with the growth of industrial capitalism from 1865 to 1898
• Explain the causes of increased economic opportunity and its effects on society

Suggested Sequencing

Use this Narrative with the Were the Titans of the Gilded Age “Robber Barons” or “Entrepreneurial Industrialists”? Point-Counterpoint and the Debating Industrial Progress: Andrew Carnegie vs. Henry George Lesson to highlight the impact businessmen like Carnegie had on industry and philanthropy in the Gilded Age.

Early in 1901, J. P. Morgan, the country’s most powerful banker, merged Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel Corporation with nine other steel companies to form the world’s largest corporation. The United States Steel Corporation, usually known as U.S. Steel or simply Big Steel, was capitalized at $1.4 billion. To get a sense of how big a sum that was at the turn of the twentieth century, consider that the federal government that year spent only $517 million. The creation of U.S. Steel was the culmination of an era of American industrial consolidation that made many fear such corporations were becoming too powerful, financially and politically, and thereby threatened American democracy.

Morgan and Carnegie could hardly have come from more different backgrounds. Morgan had been born rich in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1837, the son of international banker J. S. Morgan and the grandson of the founder of Aetna Insurance Company. He was well educated, having attended the English High School in Boston and then University of Göttingen in Germany. He was fluent in French and German. By the 1870s, Morgan was a partner in the Wall Street firm of Drexel, Morgan and Company and acted as the New York agent for his father’s bank, which was headquartered in London. On his father’s death, he formed J. P. Morgan and Company.

Andrew Carnegie had been born in 1835 in a one-room house in Dunfermline, Scotland, the son of a handloom weaver. But when the weaving of cloth was mechanized in the 1840s, the Carnegies became impoverished. Under the leadership of Carnegie’s strong-willed mother, the family emigrated to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1848, when Andrew was 13 years old. With his formal education, such as it was, at an end, he found work as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill, earning $1.20 for laboring 12 hours a day, six days a week.

In 1849, Carnegie went to work at the Ohio Telegraph Company, earning $2.00 a week as a messenger boy. He soon mastered telegraphy, learning to “read” messages by ear, and was promoted to operator. There he met Colonel James Anderson, who let working boys borrow books from his personal library, a privilege Carnegie used to the full. He resolved that if he ever became rich, he would give other working boys the same opportunity.

A tireless worker, Carnegie came to the attention of Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who hired him as his personal telegrapher at $4.00 a week. By 1859, when he was 24 years old, Carnegie was put in charge of the Western Division of the railroad and was earning $1,500 a year, a middle-class income. Mentored by Scott, who helped him start investing, often in insider deals, Carnegie was a rich man by the end of the Civil War. He invested in iron works and saw potential in the future of steel.

Carnegie was right. Before the 1850s, steel could be made only in small batches and was so expensive that it was limited to specialized applications like sword blades and precision tools, despite being much more versatile and stronger than wrought iron. Then in 1857, the English engineer Henry Bessemer developed a way to make steel in large quantities at a fraction of the old price. Steel quickly began to replace wrought iron in such things as railroad rails and structural beams.

In 1860, the United States had produced only 13,000 tons of steel. In 1880, it produced 1,467,000 tons. Twenty years later, it produced 11,227,000 tons, more than England and Germany combined. By that time, steel was the measure of a country’s industrial might, and Carnegie was primarily responsible for American strength in steel production. He left the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad to devote himself full time to overseeing the production of iron and steel. But he was careful to maintain close relationships with Thomas Scott and J. Edgar Thomson, the railroad’s president, and the railroad was soon his best customer. When Carnegie built his first steel mill, he named it after Thomson.

Carnegie’s business philosophy was simple. He retained a large part of the profits earned in good times to tide him over and give him flexibility in bad times. He used those earnings to expand during depressions, when construction costs were low and competitors were forced to the wall and had to sell cheaply. Most importantly, he was open to constant technological and business innovation to reduce operating costs even by a little, because they had much more impact on profits than construction costs. The strategy was a great success. In addition, Carnegie Steel bought up its sources of raw materials and shipping (in a strategy called vertical integration) and bought out and absorbed its competitors (horizontal integration) to dominate the steel industry. By the 1890s, it was the largest and most profitable steel company in the world.

But Carnegie felt a keen sense of social responsibility, as recounted in an article he wrote called “The Gospel of Wealth.” In it he argued that “the man who dies rich dies disgraced.” As he approached his sixties, he wanted to spend less time making money and more time giving it away by dedicating himself to philanthropy.

The president of Carnegie Steel was Charles Schwab. In late 1900, a dinner in his honor was given in New York City and attended by many of the country’s industrial and financial elite, including Morgan, who sat next to Schwab. A gifted public speaker, Schwab stood up after the dinner and extolled the strength and efficiency of the American steel industry. But, he argued, it could grow even larger and more powerful compared with its European rivals. A single company with the most efficient mills in the country could control the industry through economies of scale, advanced technology, and specialization. The resulting conglomerate, Schwab declared, would dominate the world’s steel market.

Morgan had paid close attention to what Schwab said, and after the dinner, he took him aside to talk privately. Characteristically, Morgan decided to immediately pursue Schwab’s vision. Both he and Schwab knew Carnegie’s agreement was key to the deal.

Schwab went to see Carnegie at a cottage Carnegie maintained at St. Andrews Golf Course north of New York City, and over a game of golf, Carnegie agreed to sell U.S. Steel to Morgan for $492,000,000. When Carnegie shook hands with Morgan later, the latter said, “Congratulations on becoming the richest man in the world.” Carnegie had come a long way from his first job as a bobbin boy making $1.20 a week.

Carnegie spent the last two decades of his life giving away 90 percent of his fortune. Beginning in 1880, he built more than 2,500 libraries in the United States, Canada, Britain, and elsewhere. The first, not surprisingly, was in his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. By the time of his death in 1919, about half the public libraries in the United States had been built by Andrew Carnegie.

Carnegie also established the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, which operates four museums in that city; the Carnegie Technical Schools, now part of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; and Carnegie Hall for classical music performances in New York. His most generous gift, of $120 million, was given to establish the Carnegie Corporation of New York, one of the earliest and still one of the biggest philanthropic foundations in the United States.

Review Questions

1. Which statement about Andrew Carnegie and J. P. Morgan is correct?

• Carnegie was born into a wealthy family and Morgan was not.
• Both men were from wealthy families.
• Both men lived “rags to riches'” stories.
• Morgan was from a wealthy family and Carnegie was not.

2. Andrew Carnegie successfully used what strategy to build the most successful steel company in the world?

• He resisted risky business innovation to stick with proven methods.
• He reinvested all his profits in business expansion as quickly as possible.
• He used consolidation to gain control of raw materials and reduce competition.
• He made wise investments with the family fortune he inherited.

3. To whom did Andrew Carnegie sell U.S. Steel?

• Edward Jones
• John D. Rockefeller
• Charles Schwab
• J. P. Morgan

4. Which most accurately describes Andrew Carnegie’s charitable contribution to American society?

• He left most of his fortune to his family and used the rest to build a university dedicated to medical studies.
• He set aside some of his fortune for the public welfare, mainly in education.
• He spent most of his fortune building libraries and museums and endowing other philanthropic endeavors.
• He bequeathed college scholarships to the children of his employees.

5. The business model Andrew Carnegie used to build his successful steel empire consisted of

• hostile takeovers of weaker businesses
• vertical integration
• horizontal integration
• both vertical and horizontal integration

6. Andrew Carnegie put forth his philanthropic beliefs in his famous work entitled

• “The Gospel of Wealth”
• Poverty and Progress
• “The Talented Tenth”

Free Response Questions

• Describe the business strategy Andrew Carnegie used to amass his great fortune.
• Explain how Andrew Carnegie was able to transform the American steel industry.

AP Practice Questions

“Thus is the problem of rich and poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free, the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee of the poor, entrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race in which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows, save by using it year by year for the general good. This day already dawns. Men may die without incurring the pity of their fellows, still sharers in great business enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn, and which is left chiefly at death for public uses; yet the day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free to him to administer during life, will pass away ‘unwept, unhonored, and unsung,’ no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.'”

Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth , 1889

1. Andrew Carnegie’s motivation for writing the excerpt was that he believed the rich

• had a philanthropic responsibility to help those who were less privileged
• had a right to maintain their fortunes, as long as they were earned honestly
• needed to invest in business to create more jobs for Americans
• should provide a minimum income for all Americans

2. Which of the following groups would support the concept of helping the poor as expressed in the excerpt?

• The Populists
• The National and American Women’s Suffrage Association
• The Bull Moose Party
• Settlement house workers

3. Factors that allowed people like Andrew Carnegie to amass a large personal fortune in this era included the

• profits made by a few individuals during the Civil War
• Industrial Revolution’s new technologies and processes
• scandals that occurred during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant
• profits made from land speculation during the period of Manifest Destiny

Primary Sources

Carnegie, Andrew. “Gospel of Wealth.” North American Review 148 (June):653-665.

Carnegie, Andrew. “Carnegie Speaks: A Recording of ‘The Gospel of Wealth.” http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5766/

Carnegie, Andrew. “Wealth.” June 1889. https://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Carnegie.html

Suggested Resources

Brands, H.W. Masters of Enterprise: Giants of American Business from John Jacob Astor to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey . New York: Free Press, 1999.

Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance , New York, Grove Press, 1990.

Livesay, Harold C. American Made: Men Who Shaped the American Economy . Boston: Little, Brown, 1980.

Livesay, Harold C. Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business . Boston: Little Brown, 1975.

Krass, Peter. Carnegie . New York: John Wylie and Sons, 2002.

Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie . New York: Penguin, 2006.

Strouse, Jean. Morgan: American Financier . New York: Random House, 1999.

Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie . Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989.

Related Content

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

In our resource history is presented through a series of narratives, primary sources, and point-counterpoint debates that invites students to participate in the ongoing conversation about the American experiment.

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Analysis of 'Wealth" by Andrew Carnegie

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