Carnegie, Andrew

SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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b. 25 November 1835 Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

d. 11 August 1919 Lenox, Massachusetts, USA

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Scottish industrialist and philanthropist.

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Andrew Carnegie was a highly successful entrepreneur and steel industrialist rather than an engineer, but he made a significant contribution to engineering both through his work in industry and through his philanthropic and educational activities. His parents emigrated to the United States in 1848 and the family settled in Pennsylvania. Beginning as a telegraph boy in Pittsburgh in 1850, the young Carnegie rose through successful enterprises in railways, bridges, locomotives and rolling stock, pursuing a process of "Vertical integration" in the iron and steel industry which led to him becoming the leading American ironmaster by 1881. His interests in the Carnegie Steel Company were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation in 1901, when Carnegie retired from business and devoted himself to philanthropy. He was particularly involved in benefactions to provide public libraries in the United States, Great Britain and other English-speaking countries. Remembering his ancestry, he was especially generous toward Scottish universities, as a result of which he was elected Rector of the University of St Andrews, Scotland's oldest university, by its students. Other large endowments were made for funds in recognition of heroic deeds, and he financed the building of the Temple of Peace at The Hague.

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Bibliography

1889, The Gospel of Wealth (sets out his views on the responsible use of riches).

Further Reading

J.F.Wall, 1989, Andrew Carnegie, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

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