American “captain of industry” and philanthropist, born in humble circumstances in Dunfermline, Scotland, on the 25th of November. In 1848 his father, who had been a Chartist, emigrated to America, settling in Allegheny City, PA. The raw Scots lad started work at an early age as a bobbin-boy in a cotton factory, and a few years later was engaged as a telegraph clerk and operator. His capacity was perceived by Mr. T. A. Scott of the Pennsylvania railway, who employed him as a secretary; and in 1859, when Scott became vice-president of the company, he made Carnegie superintendent of the western division of the line. In this post he was responsible for several improvements in the service; and when the Civil War opened he accompanied Scott, then assistant secretary of war, to the front. The first sources of the enormous wealth he subsequently attained were his introduction of sleeping-cars for railways, and his purchase (1864) of Storey Farm on Oil Creek, where a large profit was secured from the oil-wells. But this was only a preliminary to the success attending his development of the iron and steel industries at Pittsburg. Foreseeing the extent to which the demand would grow in America for iron and steel, he started the Keystone Bridge works, built the Edgar Thomson steel-rail mill, bought out the rival Homestead steel works, and by 1888 had under his control an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a railway 425 m. long, and a line of lake steamships. As years went by, the various Carnegie companies represented in this industry prospered to such an extent that in 1901, when they were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporation, a trust organized by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, and Mr. Carnegie himself retired from business, he was bought out at a figure equivalent to a capital of approximately £100,000,000.
From this time forward public attention was turned from the shrewd business capacity which had enabled him to accumulate such a fortune to the public-spirited way in which he devoted himself to utilizing it on philanthropic objects. His views on social subjects, and the responsibilities which great wealth involved, were already known in a book entitled Triumphant Democracy, published in 1886, and in his Gospel of Wealth (1900). He acquired Skibo Castle, in Sutherlandshire, Scotland, and made his home partly there and partly in New York; and he devoted his life to the work of providing the capital for purposes of public interest, and social and educational advancement. Among these the provision of public libraries in the United States and United Kingdom (and similarly in other English-speaking countries) was especially prominent, and “Carnegie libraries” gradually sprang up on all sides, his method being to build and equip, but only on condition that the local authority provided site and maintenance, and thus to secure local interest and responsibility. By the end of 1908 he had distributed over £10,000,000 for founding libraries alone. He gave £2,000,000 in 1901 to start the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburg, and the same amount (1902) to found the Carnegie Institution at Washington, and in both of these, and other, cases he added later to the original endowment. In Scotland he gave £2,000,000 in 1901 to establish a trust for providing funds for assisting education at the Scottish universities, a benefaction which resulted in his being elected lord rector of St. Andrews University. He was a large benefactor of the Tuskegee Institute under Booker Washington for negro education. He also established large pension funds—in 1901 for his former employés at Homestead, and in 1905 for American college professors. His benefactions in the shape of buildings and endowments for education and research are too numerous for detailed enumeration, and are noted in this work under the headings of the various localities. But mention must also be made of his founding of Carnegie Hero Fund commissions, in America (1904) and in the United Kingdom (1908), for the recognition of deeds of heroism; his contribution of £500,000 in 1903 for the erection of a Temple of Peace at The Hague, and of £150,000 for a Pan-American Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American republics. In all his ideas he was dominated by an intense belief in the future and influence of the English-speaking people, in their democratic government and alliance for the purpose of peace and the abolition of war, and in the progress of education on unsectarian lines. He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a means of promoting the spread of the English language. Mr. Carnegie married in 1887 and had one daughter. Among other publications by him were An American Four-in-hand in Britain (1883), Round the World (1884), The Empire of Business (1902), a Life of James Watt (1905) and Problems of To-day (1908).
His ideals are shown by his benefactions and are best described by describing them. In 1910 he gave $10,000,000 for establishing an Endowment for International Peace, “to hasten the abolition of international war, the foulest blot upon our civilization.” This Endowment was planned to encourage studies in economics, history and international law so that misunderstandings of peoples be averted by increasing their knowledge of one another. After America entered the World War (1917) the Endowment gathered much international information and furnished it for use at the Peace Conference. In 1910, the Pan-American Union building erected in Washington by Carnegie at a cost of $850,000 was dedicated. In 1911 he established his last and largest endowment, the Carnegie Corp. of New York, and before his death placed in its charge $125,000,000 to be used for promoting civilization in whatever way seems best to the trustees. The variety of its activities is illustrated by the following: American Red Cross ($1,500,000); Knights of Columbus War Work Fund ($250,000); Y.M.C.A. War Work Fund ($250,000); Y.W.C.A. War Work Fund ($100,000); Library Buildings in Army Cantonments ($320,000); Study of Methods of Americanization ($204,000); National Research Council ($5,420,000); Church Pension Fund (nearly $325,000), and Simplified Spelling Board ($110,000). In 1913 the Hague Peace Palace, given by Carnegie and costing $1,500,000, was dedicated. Some of the best-known gifts in addition to the above mentioned are The Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, nearly $29,000,000; the Carnegie Institution of Washington, $22,300,000; the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, $10,500,000; the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, $29,250,000; the Carnegie U.K. Trust, $10,000,000; the Scottish Universities Trust, $10,000,000; the Dunfermline Trust, $3,750,000; the Simplified Spelling Board, $250,000; the Church Peace Union, $2,025,000. By the close of 1918 he had erected 2,811 library buildings (1,946 U.S.; 660 Great Britain and Ireland; 156 Canada; 49 elsewhere) at a cost of more than $60,000,000. He had provided 7,689 church organs throughout the world, costing more than $6,000,000. To the Carnegie U.K. Trust, founded in 1913, he transferred the charge of all his existing and future benefactions other than university benefactions in the United Kingdom. He gave the trustees a wide discretion, and they have inaugurated a policy of financing rural library schemes rather than erecting library buildings, and of assisting the musical education of the people rather than granting organs to churches. In his will he provided that after certain enumerated bequests the residue of his estate (his family having already been provided for) should pass to the Carnegie Corporation. Appraisal of the estate, smaller than had been estimated, was made in 1921 and showed a net value of $22,880,000. Since according to the law of New York only half of an estate can be assigned as public bequests in case husband, wife, parent, or child survive, the residue passing to the Carnegie Corp. was less than $11,000,000. Before his death Carnegie had made public gifts, including those mentioned above, amounting to $350,000,000. He died at Lenox, MA, on the 11th of August 1919. If he did not die poor, as he claimed every man should, he at least had given away all but a relatively small portion of his wealth.
His Autobiography appeared in 1920.
