Immigrant of the Day: Andrew Carnegie

One of the captains of industry of 19th century America, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) helped build the American steel industry, a process that turned a poor young man into one of the richest entrepreneurs of his age. Later in his life, Carnegie sold his steel business and systematically gave his collected fortune away to cultural, educational and scientific institutions for “the improvement of mankind.”

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, the medieval capital of Scotland, in 1835. The town was a center of the linen industry, and Andrew’s father was a weaver, a profession the young Carnegie was expected to follow. But the industrial revolution that would later make Carnegie the richest man in the world, destroyed the weavers’ craft. When the steam-powered looms came to Dunfermline in 1847 hundreds of hand loom weavers became expendable. Andrew’s mother went to work to support the family, opening a small grocery shop and mending shoes.

Besides becoming a steel magnate, Carnegie was one of the first to call for a “league of nations” and he built a “a palace of peace” that would later evolve into the World Court. His hopes for a civilized world of peace were shattered by the onset of World War I in 1914. Carnbeie lived for another five years, but the last entry in his autobiography was the day World War I began.

For more on Carnegie, click here.

KJ