Title: Andrew Carnegie’s Surprising Legacy - HISTORY
Headings: Andrew Carnegie’s Surprising Legacy
Andrew Carnegie’s Surprising Legacy
Before his death in 1919, steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie helped fund the creation of some 2,800 libraries across the world

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With the aid of the knowledge he gleaned from books, Carnegie later reached the pinnacle of success in the American business world. The former bobbin boy rose to become a personal secretary, railroad superintendent, financial investor and bridge company owner. By the 1870s, he had founded his first steel plant, which eventually grew into the mighty Carnegie Steel Company. In 1901, at the age of 65, Carnegie sold the business to industrialist J.P. Morgan for a cool $480 million—the equivalent of over $13 billion today. The sale made Carnegie the richest man in the world, but the so-called “Prince of Steel” wasn’t content to sit idly and count his money. Saying that, “the man who dies rich dies disgraced,” he reinvented himself as a philanthropist and spent his later years using his fortune for the betterment of society. Carnegie funded retirement pensions for teachers, established the Carnegie Institute of Technology (later Carnegie-Mellon University), and set up scientific research centers and organizations devoted to world peace. He also furnished towns across the globe with everything from music halls and swimming pools to church organs. pinterest-pin-it
Andrew Carnegie at his desk. (