Title: Andrew Carnegie Archives > The Immigrant Learning Center
Headings: Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Content: To help children of working-class families learn useful trades, Carnegie created a new technical school in the city of Pittsburgh in 1900. It would later merge with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, founded by the sons of fellow immigrant entrepreneur Thomas Alexander Mellon, to form Carnegie Mellon University, a globally-recognized university with over 14,000 students, 109,900 alumni and 4,000 faculty and staff. Carnegie recognized that adequate pensions were needed to attract talented teachers. In 1918, the Carnegie Foundation established a fully-funded system of pensions for professors called Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA). The organization today serves 5 million active and retired employees and has $861 billion in combined assets under management. These are just some examples of Carnegie’s generosity. In his 1889 book, Gospel of Wealth, he says, “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” By the time of his death in 1919, he had given away nearly $351 million. His $135 million donation to establish the Carnegie Corporation of New York made it the single largest philanthropic trust ever established up to that time. Over a century later, his name is still attached to 22 organizations around the world that do work in fields like scientific research, peace, international affairs, art, and, of course, education.