Andrew Carnegie, once the world’s richest person, was born in 1835 to a weaver’s family in Scotland. As a child, he was expected to follow his father’s profession. But the industrial revolution destroyed the weavers’ craft, and the family had to leave for new possibilities in America.
In 1848 the Carnegies arrived in Pittsburgh, then the iron-manufacturing center of the country. Young Carnegie took odd jobs at a cotton factory and later worked as a messenger boy in the telegraph office. He was often asked to deliver messages to the city theater, where he would stay to watch plays by great playwrights. He also spent most of his leisure hours in a small library that a local benefactor made available to working boys.
After the Civil War, Carnegie saw great potential in the iron industry. He devoted himself to the replacement of wooden bridges with stronger iron ones and earned a fortune. He further introduced a new steel refining process to convert iron into steel. By 1900, Carnegie Steel produced more of the metal than all of Great Britain.
However, Carnegie often expressed his uneasiness with the businessman’s life. Wishing to spend more time receiving instruction and reading systematically, he once wrote, “To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery.” The strong desire for intellectual pursuit led him to sell his company and retire at 64.
Fond of saying that “the man who dies rich dies disgraced,” Carnegie then turned his attention to giving away his fortune. He abhorred charity; instead, he used his money to help others help themselves. He established over 2,500 public libraries, and sponsored numerous cultural, educational and scientific institutions. By the time he died in 1919, he had given away 350 million dollars.
When did Carnegie begin to show his interest in artistic and intellectual pursuit?