biography
pronunciation:
[kah(r)naygee, kar
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1835–1919)
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| biography:
| Industrialist and philanthropist, born in Dunfermline, Fife, E Scotland, UK. Although he had only a primary-school education, he grew up in a family that valued ideas and books as well as progressive social and economic reforms. His father was a handloom weaver, and he brought his family to the USA in 1848, where they joined relatives in Allegheny (now Pittsburgh), PA. He began as a bobbin boy in a factory, became a telegraph operator (and was one of the first to learn to read messages ‘by ear’), and then joined the Pennsylvania Railroad (1853–65) as assistant to Thomas Scott. He did not join the military during the Civil War but helped improve the Federal army's telegraph communications. In 1865 he founded his own businesses, first the Keystone Bridge Co, then making iron and steel, and he soon became wealthy. His success resulted from his decision to surround himself with intelligent men, to invest heavily in new equipment, and to keep majority ownership in his companies so that he did not have to answer to stockholders. As he prospered, he broadened his interests, travelling abroad and deliberately seeking to exchange views with leading individuals in Britain as well as America. Among his friends were Matthew Arnold, Mark Twain, William Gladstone and Theodore Roosevelt, and he built a great estate in Scotland where he often entertained prominent people. He wrote several books, including Triumphant Democracy (1886), setting forth his optimistic views about the role of capitalism and democracy. Although progressive in some respects, he was essentially a benevolent dictator who had little patience with the burgeoning labour movement. The blackest mark on his career was the Homestead strike of 1892 when he allowed his assistant, Henry Clay Frick, to take steps that led to violence. (Carnegie himself was in Scotland during the strike.) By 1889 his Carnegie Steel Co had become one of the world's largest, and when he sold his business to J P Morgan (1901) for some $260 million profit for himself, he became one of the richest men in the world and could devote himself to his philanthropies. He had started donating money as a young entrepreneur, and in 1889 published an article, ‘Wealth’, in which he argued that the wealthy were obligated to distribute their fortunes to improve the world. He had begun by helping communities build libraries and helping churches buy organs. He established pension funds for teachers, eventually setting up the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1905) to support this as well as other programmes, and also helped support various scientific undertakings, eventually establishing the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1902) to support such projects. In 1904 he set up the Carnegie Hero Funds to recognize individuals who had performed heroic acts, donated to many institutions of higher learning in Scotland as well as in America, and set up the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (and its sister school, Margaret Morrison). In 1910 he set up the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and helped build the international court of justice at the Hague. It is estimated that he eventually gave away $350 million, but his money failed to buy what he most wanted, world peace, and he died before the USA rejected the League of Nations he had long dreamed of establishing. |
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