Andrew Carnegie was born in 1835 in a small house in Dunfermline, Scotland. For many generations, the Carnegie family had been master handloom weavers. But as the industrial revolution introduced steam-powered looms, the family business collapsed.
At age 12, Carnegie moved with his family to Pittsburgh, where his two aunts lived. All of them slept in one room. At age13, Carnegie started working in the boiler room of a textile factory. He would frequently have nightmares about the boiler exploding.
He later took a job as a messenger at a telegraph office. Andrew was now a teenager and made a strong effort to know the people of the town. At age 17, Carnegie took a job as a telegrapher and assistant to a local railroad man for a huge salary of $35 a month. Over the next decade, he became a very vital part of running the railroad. Carnegie also learned to invest. He made $5,000 a year just by investing $217 into a sleeping car company. His investments became so profitable that his $2400 a year from the railroad amounted to only 5 percent of his income.
In 1865, Carnegie quit the railroad and moved himself and his mother to a suite at the popular St Nicholas hotel in New York. A few years later, Carnegie organized the first of his steel works. Over the next few decades, “Carnegie Steel” grew into an empire, thanks to new steal processing companies and other innovations. In 1897, Carnegie returned home to Scotland and bought the 40,000-acre Skibo Castle estate. Four years later, at 66 years old, Andrew Carnegie sold the steal company to JP Morgan for $480 million. The combined company was renamed “United States Steel Corporation.”
Morgan then told him “congratulations, Mr. Carnegie, you are now the richest man in the world,” And Carnegie replied, “I wonder if I could have gotten $100 million more. I probably should have asked for that.” And Morgan said, “If you had, you would have gotten it.”
Carnegie devoted the last 18 years of his life to philanthropy. He donated to nearly 3,000 libraries, parks, education, arts, and world peace. Andrew Carnegie is a prime example of rags to riches, and a great example to live up to.