Andrew Carnegie died on this day in 1919. The future steel magnate was born in Scotland in 1835; his family moved to the United States when he was twelve. He began working in a cotton mill and later became a messenger boy, eventually working his way up to personal assistant for a railroad industry executive. He began his entrepreneurial career in 1865, helping to found the Keystone Bridge Company, which converted wooden railroad bridges to steel.
From there, he leaned into the steel industry, building a mill just outside Pittsburgh and eventually acquiring holdings around the city’s metro area and consolidating them into the Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold for $250 million in 1901. Then, he turned to philanthropy, first funding new buildings in his Scottish hometown of Dunfermline. He then built out various foundations across the United Kingdom and the U.S., as well as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
You can learn more about Carnegie at PBS.
