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About Carnegie Corporation
Biography
Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on November 25,
1835. The son of a weaver, he came with his family to the United
States in 1848 and settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. At age thirteen,
Carnegie went to work as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill. He then
moved rapidly through a succession of jobs with Western Union and
the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1865, he resigned to establish his
own business enterprises and eventually organized the Carnegie Steel
Company, which launched the steel industry in Pittsburgh. At age
sixty-five, he sold the company to J. P. Morgan for $480 million
and devoted the rest of his life to his philanthropic activities
and writing, including his autobiography.
Many
persons of wealth have contributed to charity, but Carnegie was
perhaps the first to state publicly that the rich have a moral obligation
to give away their fortunes. In 1889 he wrote The Gospel of Wealth,
in which he asserted that all personal wealth beyond that required
to supply the needs of one's family should be regarded as a trust
fund to be administered for the benefit of the community.
Carnegie
set about disposing of his fortune through innumerable personal
gifts and through the establishment of various trusts. In his thirties,
Carnegie had already begun to give away some of his fast-accumulating
funds. His first large gifts were made to his native town. Later
he created seven philanthropic and educational organizations in
the United States, including Carnegie Corporation of New York, and
several more in Europe.
One
of Carnegie's lifelong interests was the establishment of free public
libraries to make available to everyone a means of self-education.
There were only a few public libraries in the world when, in 1881,
Carnegie began to promote his idea. He and the Corporation subsequently
spent over $56 million to build 2,509 libraries throughout the English-speaking
world.
After
termination of this program in 1917, the Corporation continued for
about forty years an interest in the improvement of library services.
Other major programs in the Corporation's early history included
adult education and education in the fine arts.
During
his lifetime, Carnegie gave away over $350 million. He died in Lenox,
Massachusetts, on August 11, 1919.
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