Andrew Carnegie and the Steel Industry

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American who lived during the 19th century. Carnegie was an industrialist who played a pivotal role in the expansion of the American steel industry. Although he sometimes used methods that hurt the people to make profit , Carnegie contributed to America's growth as a nation economically because he connected different parts of America by building bridges and railroads and he helped cities to grow by building modern structures such as skyscrapers. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland in the attic of a small house on November 25th, 1835.1 He was named after his grandfather, Andrew Carnegie, who was a popular man in the district, being the head of the lively ones of his day and the chief of their club, “Patiemuir College.”2 He grew up having little formal education, but his family held books and learning at a high level of importance.3 In 1848, when he was 13 years old, Carnegie and his family moved to the United States and made a home in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. He worked in a factory and later worked his way through the telegraphing business. Carnegie’s ability to get his foot in the door of the railroad business enabled him to learn the tricks of the trade and also about business altogether. 4 With the experiences he acquired, he was well on his way to becoming one of the most successful business men in America of his time. Carnegie’s life was one full of many events, ups and downs, gains and losses, but it certainly can be said that it was a life well lived. 1Andrew Carnegie, Louise W. Carnegie, and John C. Van Dyke, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1920), 2. 2 Ibid.
3 "Andrew Carnegie," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/andrew- carnegie-9238756 (accessed Nov 17, 2012). 4 Ibid.

After the death of his mother, who lived with him until the day she died, he married Louise Whitfield and together, they had their daughter, Margaret. Carnegie began working in a telegraph