Biography
Andrew Carnegie (November 25 1835 – August 11 1919) was a Scottish-born American businessman, a major philanthropist, and the founder of the Carnegie Steel Company which later became U.S. Steel. He is known for having, later in his life, given away most of his riches to fund the establishment of many libraries, schools, and universities in Scotland, America and worldwide.
The Family
Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. He was the son of a hand loom weaver, William Carnegie. His mother was Margaret, daughter of one Thomas Morrison, a tanner and shoemaker. Although his family was impoverished, he grew up in a cultured, political home.Many of Carnegie's closest relatives were self-educated tradesmen and class activists. William Carnegie, although poor, had educated himself and, as far as his resources would permit, ensured that his children received an education. William Carnegie was moreover political activist and was involved with those organising demonstrations against the Corn laws.
He was also a Chartist. He wrote frequently to newspapers and contributed articles in the radical pamphlet, Cobbett's Register edited by William Cobbett. Amongst other things, he argued for abolition of the Rotten Boroughs and reform of the British House of Commons, Catholic Emancipation, and laws governing safety at work, which were passed many years later in the Factory Acts. Most radically of all, however, he promoted the abolition of all forms of hereditary privilege, including all monarchies.
Uncle influence
Another great influence on the young Andrew Carnegie was his uncle, George Lauder, a proprietor of a small grocer's shop in Dunfermline High Street. This uncle introduced the young Carnegie to such historical Scottish heroes as Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. He was also introduced to the writings of Robert Burns, as well as Shakespeare. Lauder had Carnegie commit to memory many pages of Burns's writings, writings that were to stay with him for the rest of his life. George Lauder was additionally interested in the United States.
Lauder saw the U.S.A. as a country with "democratic institutions". Carnegie would later grow to consider the U.S. the role model for democratic governement. Another uncle, his mother's brother, "Ballie" Morrison, was also a radical political firebrand. A fervent nonconformist, the chief objects of his tirades were the Church of England and the Church of Scotland. In 1842, the young Carnegie's radical sentiments were stirred further at the news of "Ballie" being imprisoned for his part in a "Cessation of Labour" (strike). At this time, withdrawal of labour by a hireling was a criminal offense.
Migration to America
Andrew Carnegie's house
Andrew Carnegie's father had worked as a jobbing hand loom weaver. This involved receiving the mill's raw materials at his cottage and weaving them into cloth on the primitive loom in the cottage. In the 1840s, a new system was coming into being, the factory system. During this era, mill owners began constructing large weaving mills with looms powered at first by water wheels and later by steam engines. These factories could produce cloth at far lower cost, partly through increased mechanisation and economies of scale, but partly also by paying mill workers very low wages and by working them very long hours.
The success of the mills forced William Carnegie to seek work in the mills or elsewhere away from home. However, the radical views of Andrew Carnegie's father were well known, and he was not wanted.He chose to emigrate. His mother's two sisters had already emigrated, but it was his wife who persuaded William Carnegie to make the passage. Making the passage was not easy, however, for they had to find the passage money. They were forced to sell their meagre possessions and borrow some £20 from friends, a considerable sum in 1848.
Sailing on the Wiscasset
That May, his family emigrated to the United States, sailing on the Wiscasset, a former whaler that took the family from Broomielaw, in Glasgow to New York. From there they proceeded up the Hudson River and the Erie Canal to Lake Erie and then to Allegheny, Pennsylvania (present day Pittsburgh's northside neighborhoods), where William Carnegie found work in a cotton factory. Young Andrew Carnegie found work in the same building as a "Bobbin boy" for the sum of $1.20 a week. His brother, Thomas, eight years younger, was sent to school.
Andrew Carnegie quickly grew accustomed to his new country: three years after arriving in the United States, the young Carnegie began writing to his friends in Scotland extolling the great virtues of American democracy whilst disparaging and criticising "feudal British institutions". At the same time, he followed in his father's footsteps and wrote letters to the newspapers including the New York Tribune on subjects such as slavery.