Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835 in Dunfermline, the medieval capital of Scotland. His parents were William Carnegie, who was a linen weaver; and Margaret Carnegie, who made shoes. The town of Dunfermline was strongly based in linen weaving, and when the industrial revolution hit, linen workers such as William Carnegie found themselves out of work. Margaret quickly took on additional jobs to help the family, opening a grocery store and fixing shoes. This was an important turning point in Andrew Carnegie's life. He would later write that “[he] 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.”1 This experience gave him an ambition for riches that would drive him throughout his life.
Andrew's mother, Margaret, wanted to help the family in the wake of the devastating industrial revolution. Margaret was able to convince the family to move to America, the “land of opportunities.” In 1848, the family made the long journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Allegheny, Pennsylvania. There Andrew's father secured work in a cotton mill. Andrew, now thirteen, was able to obtain at job at the same factory where his father worked-as a bobbin boy who he received $1.20 per week.
Andrew had a thirst for knowledge and would often watch Shakespeare and other plays when delivering messages to the theater. Andrew was committed to making his life better off, and realized that the best tool for achieving this was a good education, reading, and writing. In this, however, he faced a problem. At that time, the public libraries that we take for granted now, did not, for the most part, exist. Local libraries charge...
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...exactly what he wanted: the opportunity for everyone to be able to give themselves an education and make themselves better off. Even if his methods were not entirely perfect, Carnegie's dream was truly visionary.
Works Cited
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/01/207272849/how-andrew-carnegie-turned-his-fortune-into-a-library-legacy
http://carnegie.org/about-us/mission-and-vision/foundation-history/about-andrew-carnegie/andrew-carnegie-biography/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/96298/Andrew-Carnegie http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande01.html http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/wealth.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande04.html Gillam, Scott Andrew Carnegie: industrial giant and philanthropist. Edina, MN: ABDO Publishing Co., 2009.
De Capua, Sarah Andrew Carnegie. Ann Arbor, MI: Cherry Lake Publishing, 2008
Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller: Captains of industry, or robber barons? True, Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller may have been the most influential businessmen of the 19th century, but was the way they conducted business proper? To fully answer this question, we must look at the following: First understand how Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller changed the market of their industries. Second, look at the similarities and differences in how both men achieved dominance.
Andrew Jackson was born in a backwoods settlement in the Carolinas in 1776. His parents, who were Scotch-Irish people. They came to America two years before Andrew was born. His mother was widowed while pregnant with him. At age thirteen, Andrew joined the patriotic cause and volunteered to fight the British. He and his brother were both captured and imprisoned together by the British. Their mother got them released by a prisoner exchange, but his brother died on the long trip home from smallpox. During his independent days, he lived in a tavern with other students.
Ever since Cornelius Vanderbilt was little, he had plans to be a boatman and become rich, and he did just that. Cornelius Vanderbilt was born on May 27, 1794, in Port Richmond, Staten Island, New York. He was born into a hardworking family of farmers and he had many siblings as well as a father named Cornelius van Derbilt and a mother named Phebe Hand. At just eleven years old, Cornelius Vanderbilt started working with his
It was because of Mr. Cranch that Abigail learned of her writing techniques that later played a large role in her life. The literary works of many men opened Abigail to a new world of literacy. It was writers like John Thomson that gave Abigail a sense of pleasure in reading.... ... middle of paper ...
For example, he explains to the reader that he would carry loaves of bread when sent on errands so that he could bargain with the local children for a reading or writing lesson. He admits "I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood" (Douglass 101). This statement is ironic because Douglass himself was in a worse position, but instead, even as a 12-year-old Douglas acknowledges what little advantages he does have. Another example of irony is presented later in the essay, when Douglass is explaining his mental struggle, long after successfully learning how to read and write. He refers to his literacy as his "wretched condition" and even tells the reader "I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing" (Douglass 103). This statement is relevant because although Douglass 's fame in literary history, and that he is feeling burdened by this. This adds to the overall resolution of the essay because it adds a new element of mental discomfort instead of the physical and social discomfort associated with
In the beginning of this episode we are shown that Andrew Carnegie’s mentor (Tom Scott) is dead. It then takes us back to when Carnegie was a boy and worked for Scott. Then helps him advance through the ranks. At age 24 he is manager of the company. He and Scott then want to expand railroads west. Scott then asks him to build a bridge. He has a hard time but four years later manages to build the bridge across the Mississippi River. After the bridge is built Carnegie has a hard time getting people to walk across the bridge. People were afraid they had never seen anything like this before. So Carnegie throws a parade and has a elephant led the parade showing that it is stable. Then to find out people want railroads to be replaced with steel which
The biography begins when the impoverished Carnegie family leaves their home in Scotland having been replaced by machines in the Industrial Revolution. People started sailing to America because their “old home no longer promised anything at all” (Livesay 14). They end up earning twice as much as they did in Scotland with their son Tom in school, the parents Margaret and Will shoe-binding, and Andrew working as a bobbin boy. Money earned without work was an opening to corruption in the eyes of a Republican nation and it was also assumed that hereditary wealth had caused the decline of Europe (Lena). Carnegie soon rises from poor bobbin boy to railroad superintendent, all the way to manager at the Pennsylvania Railroad. "I have made millions since, Carnegie later claimed, but none of these gave me so much happiness as my first week's earnings. I was now a helper of the family, a bread winner” (16). The background exposition on his family became crucial to understanding Carnegie’s drive to succeed. Livesay also fluently demonstrates the various professional relationships Carnegie develops throughout his life and how they affect his career. When his first investment pays a profit of $10, Carnegie discovers a whole new world of earning money from the capital. In 1865, he establishes his own business enterprises and...
Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1857 into a poverty driven family of Irish
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the U.S (1861-1865) who brought the Union to victory in the Civil War.
middle of paper ... ... as farmers became more conscious of prices rising to transport their goods, they were forced to find other means of transportation to distribute their goods. Even though these men attempted to build a stable foundation for America to grow on, their negative aspects dramatically outweighed the positive. Even though Andrew Carnegie donated his fortunes to charity, he only acquired the money through unjustifiable actions. As these industrialists continued to monopolize companies through illegal actions, plutocracy- government controlled by the wealthy, took control of the Constitution.
Before Andrew Jackson became president, he had a rough life. His parents died when he was young, so he grew up without guidance. Jackson was in all the fights he could pick and to many, a wild child. By age 17, he calmed down and began planning his life. It wasn’t until after he had enrolled in the war of 1813 and showed great leadership and strength, that he was in the spot for presidency.
Industrialists Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick could not have come from more different backgrounds. Carnegie was born in the Scottish town of Dunfermline to a very poor family in 1835. When he was 12 years old, his father, a weaver, decided to move the family to the United States in search of better prospects, arriving at what was then the municipality of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now part of Pittsburgh’s North Side. By that time, Pittsburgh was already known as a major center for the production of steel and other metals. In 1853, at the age of 18, Carnegie was hired as a telegraph operator for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and became a protégé of Thomas A. Scott, who would soon rise
Andrew Carnegie's mother Margaret mother taught the young Carnegie the frailty that he would one day become famous for later on in life. One day in school he quoted a proverb that his mother had repeated often "Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" (qtd Nasaw 56) His classmates often laughed at him, unaware that the principal would one day help Andrew Carnegie to become one of the riches men in the world. Mrs. Carnegie Followed her two sisters to Pittsburgher husband took up the grueling factory work with a nearby cotton mill, but he soon quit it to return to his hard room to make to make table clothes that he sold door to door. Mrs. Carnegie once again picking the time his family was still poor. Carnegie found his mother crying about the family's struggle. Andrew, her first son, was born in Scotland in 1835 to the twenty-five year old Margaret. By the mid- 1840's, the family was sliding into object poverty. William, Margaret's husband, was a hand weaver who at the new and improving times started to dramatically lose business due to the new power driven factory looms. The family had to leave their rare house and move back to small quarters. Margaret opened a small food store to add to the family's income.
As a relatively young man, Frederick Douglass discovers, in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, that learning to read and write can be his path to freedom. Upon discovering that...
Carnegie's first job was a telegraph messenger boy, and later upgraded to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company as a telegraph operator. His persevering work allowed him to quickly advance through the company, and he became the superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division. He continued making investments and made good profits throughout the civil war, and finally left Pennsylvania Railroad and started his own iron companies, eventually Keystone Bridge Works and Union Ironworks.