Andrew Carnegie

Humble Origins
• Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland
on November 25, 1838.
• He was born to a family of handloom weavers.
However, his family business collapsed due to
the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
• His family migrated to the US in 1845, in
search for employment opportunities.
"I began to learn what poverty meant,
It was burnt into my heart then that my
father had to beg for work. And then and there
came the resolve that I would cure that when I
got to be a man."
 Start of Career - Bobbin Boy!
• Andrew arrived in Alleghany Pennsylvania.
• His first job was that of a Bobbin Boy at a
cotton mill, $1.20 a week for 72 hours.
• Carnegie started reading voraciously during
his free time.
 Ohio Telegraph Company
• Carnegie began work as a telegraph
messenger in 1849.
• His starting wage was $2.50 per week.
• He impressed local businessman with his
competency and intellect.
• Rose quickly through the business ranks.
 Thomas A Scott - Pennsylvania
Railroad Company
• Employed as Scotts personal assistant for $35
a week in 1853.
• At age 18, Carnegie began a rapid
advancement through the company, becoming
the superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division.
• Thomas Scott helped Carnegie earn some
crucial capital for future investments
• Stayed part of Carnegie’s business life well
afterwards.
 Thomas A Scott - Pennsylvania
Railroad Company
• Carnegie reinvested his returns in such inside
investments in railroad-related industries:
(iron, bridges, and rails).
• Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the
basis for his later success.
• His investments became so profitable that his
$2400 a year from the railroad amounted to
only 5 percent of his income.
 Civil War years
• Before the American Civil War, Carnegie
arranged a merger between Woodruff's
company and that of George Pullman, the
inventor of a sleeping car. The investment
proved a great success and a source of profit
for Woodruff and Carnegie.
 Civil War years
• Carnegie recognized that the demand for iron
products, such as armor for gunboats, cannon,
and shells made Pittsburgh a center of
wartime production.
• Hence, he worked with others in establishing a
steel rolling mill, and steel production plant in
Pittsburg. His holdings grew and the control of
the industry became the source of his fortune.
 Keystone Bridge Company
• In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm
on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania.
The farm sometime yielded over $1,000,000 in
cash dividends, and petroleum from oil wells on
the property sold profitably.
• In 1865, Carnegie left the railroads to devote all
his energies to the ironworks trade. Carnegie
worked to develop several iron works, eventually
forming The Keystone Bridge Works and the
Union Ironworks, in 1865
 Keystone Bridge Company
• He used his connection to Thomas Scott and
Edgar Thomson to acquire contracts for his
Keystone Bridge Company and the rails
produced by his ironworks.
• He also gave stock to Scott and Thomson in his
businesses, and the Pennsylvania was his best
customer.
 Expanding An Empire
• Carnegie made his fortune in the steel
industry, controlling the most extensive
integrated iron and steel operations ever
owned by an individual in the United States.
• Carnegie considerably reduced cost in steel
making by introducing the Bessemer Process.
 Expanding An Empire
• In 1888, Carnegie bought the rival Homestead
Steel Works, which included an extensive
plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a
425-mile (685 km) long railway, and a line of
lake steamships.
• Carnegie combined his assets and those of his
associates in 1892 with the launching of the
Carnegie Steel Company.
 Expanding An Empire
• Carnegie aggressively expanded vertically
using backwards integration. Hence
significantly reducing costs.
• By 1900, Carnegie steel produced more steel
than the entire Great Britain.
• Carnegie's empire grew to include the J. Edgar
Thomson Steel Works, Pittsburgh Bessemer
Steel Works, the Lucy Furnaces, the Keystone
Bridge Works, and a dozen other steel and
ironworks companies.
 The Peak Of Profit
• By 1900 Carnegie was making 45 million a
year, and was considering retirement.
• In 1901, Carnegie Steel was bought out by J.P
Morgan for $485 million, making Carnegie the
richest man in the world.
Carnegie the Philanthropist

“A man who dies rich, dies disgraced.”

 Carnegie the Philanthropist
• After his retirement, Carnegie focused his
time and energy on Philanthropic activities.
• Among his many philanthropic efforts, his laid
his prime focus on educational reforms and
infrastructure.
 Carnegie the Philanthropist
• Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located
in 47 US states, and also in Canada, the United
Kingdom, what is now the Republic of Ireland,
Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, and
Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up
the University of Birmingham in 1899.
 Carnegie the Philanthropist
• He gave $2 million in 1901 to start the Carnegie
Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh, and
the same amount in 1902 to found the Carnegie
Institution at Washington, D.C.
• In Scotland, he gave $10 million in 1901 to
establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of
Scotland. He gave a further $10 million in 1913 to
endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a
grant-making foundation.
 Carnegie the Philanthropist
• He founded the Carnegie Hero Fund for the
United States and Canada in 1904 for the
recognition of deeds of heroism.
• When Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in
Lenox, Massachusetts, of bronchial
pneumonia, he had already given away
$350,695,653 (approximately $4.8 billion,
adjusted to 2010 figures) of his wealth to
philanthropic causes.