Andrew Carnegie Lived The American Dream

1051 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Wealth by Andrew Carnegie

What is the American Dream? According to Webster the American Dream is the ideal according to which equality of opportunity permits any American to aspire to high attainment and material success.

Andrew Carnegie is the epitome of the American Dream because he is a classic example of rags to riches success story. He seemed to be touched by an angel. No matter what was wrong with the world, Andrew Carnegie was to consistently capitalize on success.

Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1835. “Protected by proud and self-sacrificing parents, Andrew may not have known in these years what real poverty was…”(Wall, Andrew Carnegie)

Andrew Carnegie’s formal education ended after elementary school, the family's respect for books and learning ensured that Carnegie's education would continue throughout his life. Born the son of a weaver, Carnegie’s family suffered the effects of the industrial revolution. The mass production of the new steam looms left countless families out of work. To escape the depression of their hometown his family immigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1848.

At the age of thirteen, Carnegie began his new life in America as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory. Through a connection from his uncle, Carnegie was offered a job as a messenger boy and operator for the Telegraph Office. From the promotion of his new job, Carnegie became acquainted with Pittsburgh’s most

Well-known men.

While employed by the Telegraph Office Carnegie met Thomas A. Scott, the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who offered him a job. It was while being employed by Scott, that he was given a proposal to invest in the Adams Express Company. Carnegie was able to convince his mother to mortgage their home and loan him $500 to begin his first investment.

In 1865 Carnegie left Pennsylvania Railroad after 12 years to concentrate on his own businesses, the first being the Keystone Bridge Company, which made iron and steel. Carnegie surrounded himself with intelligent advisors, made heavy investments in new equipment, and maintained his ownership stake in all his enterprises, enabling him to exponentially increase his wealth.

During his trips to business trips Carnegie he came to meet steel-makers. At about age 38, he began concentrating on steel, founding the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works near Pittsburgh, which would eventually evolve into the Carnegie Steel Company.

In the 1870s Carnegie's new company built the first steel plants in the United States to use the new Bessemer steel-making process, borrowed from Britain.

Show More
Related

  • Differences Of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick And The Homestead Strike

    1024 Words  | 3 Pages

    Industrialists Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick could not have come from more different backgrounds. Carnegie was born in the Scottish town of Dunfermline to a very poor family in 1835. When he was 12 years old, his father, a weaver, decided to move the family to the United States in search of better prospects, arriving at what was then the municipality of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now part of Pittsburgh’s North Side. By that time, Pittsburgh was already known as a major center for the production of steel and other metals. In 1853, at the age of 18, Carnegie was hired as a telegraph operator for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and became a protégé of Thomas A. Scott, who would soon rise

    Read More

  • Andrew Carnegie and the the Second Industrial Revolution

    573 Words  | 2 Pages

    Carnegie was the classic rags to riches story, the penniless immigrant who made it big in the land of opportunity. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and migrated to America in 1848 at the age of 13. His first job was in a cotton mill, earning a measly $1.20 each week. Carnegie was ambitious and determined though and by the next year had gotten a job in a Pittsburg telegraph office. It was here he got his foot in the door to the business of Pittsburg. This allowed him to begin a job at the Pennsylvania Railroad as a secretary to the railroad official, Thomas Scott. By making wise choices, taking contro...

    Read More

  • How Did Andrew Carnegie Affect The Economy

    599 Words  | 2 Pages

    Over the years Carnegie became tired of being in the steel business, so when J.P Morgan and his partners were interested in Carnegie’s Steel Company, Carnegie found that way would be a great way to get out of that world. Carnegie sold his company to them left them to $480,000,000, that was the second smart move for him. In 1901 Carnegie became the richest man alive, and he knew he had to give it away when he died.

    Read More

  • Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business

    626 Words  | 2 Pages

    The biography begins when the impoverished Carnegie family leaves their home in Scotland having been replaced by machines in the Industrial Revolution. People started sailing to America because their “old home no longer promised anything at all” (Livesay 14). They end up earning twice as much as they did in Scotland with their son Tom in school, the parents Margaret and Will shoe-binding, and Andrew working as a bobbin boy. Money earned without work was an opening to corruption in the eyes of a Republican nation and it was also assumed that hereditary wealth had caused the decline of Europe (Lena). Carnegie soon rises from poor bobbin boy to railroad superintendent, all the way to manager at the Pennsylvania Railroad. "I have made millions since, Carnegie later claimed, but none of these gave me so much happiness as my first week's earnings. I was now a helper of the family, a bread winner” (16). The background exposition on his family became crucial to understanding Carnegie’s drive to succeed. Livesay also fluently demonstrates the various professional relationships Carnegie develops throughout his life and how they affect his career. When his first investment pays a profit of $10, Carnegie discovers a whole new world of earning money from the capital. In 1865, he establishes his own business enterprises and...

    Read More

  • Was Andrew Carnegie A Hero Or Anti Hero?

    694 Words  | 2 Pages

    To understand Carnegie before he became a wealthy man, he grew up poor working for $1.20 a week (Document LV). At the age of 50 years, he took a risk by investing in a package delivery company. His gamble paid off and he gained money to start his company, Carnegie’s Steel Company. Eventually, his company grew and caused

    Read More

  • Andrew Carnegie On The Gospel Of Wealth

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    With this recognition, he resigned and started the Keystone Bridge Company in 1865. He built a steel-rail mill, and bought out a small steel company. By 1888, he had a large plant. Later on he sold his Carnegie Steel Company to J. P. Morgan's U.S.

    Read More

  • Andrew Carnegie

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    Growing up as a young boy in Scotland, Carnegie's family was not very wealthy. They immigrated to America where Carnegie went from working as a bobbin boy, making $1.20 per hour, to making millions of dollars later in his life. Carnegie did not become wealthy by unethical means, as a Robber Baron would. Instead he worked very hard and wise to get to where he was during that time. Andrew Carnegie came from "rags to riches" in his lifetime and it paid off.

    Read More

  • Andrew Carnegie: A Captain Of Industry

    387 Words  | 1 Pages

    When Andrew Carnegie was younger, he worked in a cotton mill, in which his weekly salary was $1.20. After his job at the cotton mill, he became the manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad company. As he got older, he realized the importance of iron and steel to the American economy, and he began to produce his own. Steel-producing companies tried to compete with Carnegie’s business. He made several efforts to lower the cost of

    Read More

  • Andrew Carnegie and His American Dream

    380 Words  | 1 Pages

    Carnegie's first job was a telegraph messenger boy, and later upgraded to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company as a telegraph operator. His persevering work allowed him to quickly advance through the company, and he became the superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division. He continued making investments and made good profits throughout the civil war, and finally left Pennsylvania Railroad and started his own iron companies, eventually Keystone Bridge Works and Union Ironworks.

    Read More

  • How Did Andrew Carnegie Build America

    654 Words  | 2 Pages

    He would later make many plants that helped to make steel much easier. According to Andrew Carnegie, Entrepreneur, Business Leader, Philanthropist(1835–1919), “In 1901, Carnegie made a dramatic change in his life. He sold his business to the United States Steel Corporation, started by legendary financier J.P. Morgan. The sale earned him more than $200 million.” Retrieved from https://www.biography.com/people/andrew-carnegie-9238756 2017. He later spent his life helping others and forming and making foundations and libraries and places and making history that is still a huge part of our America now. He has always made education an important part of his life he could share this with others and he donated tons of his money to libraries and opened over 2,000 of them. He wanted to help people he made libraries public because most libraries were private when he was growing

    Read More

  • Why Is Andrew Carnegie Important?

    307 Words  | 1 Pages

    Carnegie's business came to be called Carnegie steel, which revolutionized the production of steel in the United States. In 1868, Carnegie had a vision to build a bridge across the Mississippi,

    Read More

  • Andrew Carnegie

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    Carnegie had no formal education; however, he gained most of his education by observing and experiencing almost everything around him. For instance, Carnegie learned how to use the telegraph by playing around with it when nobody was near. He became so good at working the telegraph, he actually was able to decode the messages by ear. At the sight of this, Thomas A. Scott, his boss promoted him to a clerk and telegraph operator. Later Mr. Scott promoted him to Vice President of the Western Division because of his zeal, honesty, loyalty, and conscientiousness. The promotion was the result of these qualities and Carnegie bringing Mr. Scott’s attention to the sleeping car, a very profitable investment for Pennsylvania Railroad. He began to invest in property where there might be oil with some of the citizens in Homewood, the city to which he had moved. It was very profitable; one deal results in a $40,000 purchase price turning into $3,000,000 two years later.

    Read More

  • The Characteristics Of Andrew Carnegie

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    This struck Carnegie with confusion because he didn’t really plan anything important to do with his money but one thing. Andrew Carnegie was a philanthropist. A philanthropist is a person who generously donates their money to good causes. Carnegie believed what all philanthropists believed in. Philanthropists believe in not keeping money for themselves but to give it to the less fortunate. Carnegie would rather give money to public services rather than his family. He stated, “Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is this not misguided affection?”(Document B 2). He now knew what his main objective was as a philanthropist that gained all the money in the country. Andrew Carnegie himself stated, “The duty of the man of wealth (is to) set an example of modest...living...:;and...to consider all surplus revenues...as trust funds… to produce the most beneficial results for the community - the man of wealth thus becoming the… agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer: doing for them better than they would or for themselves…”(Document B 4). So from what you can tell so far about philanthropy you knew that he would give away his money. He once gave away approximately $350,695,653 (Document C). It shows that he’s not your average and greedy rich person and would rather give

    Read More

  • Men Who Built America

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1848, the Carnegie family moved to America in search of better economic opportunities and settled in Allegheny City Pennsylvania. Andrew Carnegie found employment as a bobbin boy at a cotton factory, earning $1.20 a week. Ambitious and hard-working, he went on to hold a series of jobs, including messenger in a telegraph office and secretary and telegraph operator for the superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1859, Carnegie succeeded his boss as railroad division superintendent. While in this position, he made profitable investments in a variety of businesses, including coal, iron, oil companies, and a manufacturer of railroad sleeping cars. After leaving his post with the railroad in 1865, Carnegie continued in the business world. With the U.S. railroad industry then entering a period of rapid growth, he expanded his railroad-related investments by having an iron bridge building company and a telegraph firm, often using his connections to win insider contracts. By the time he was in his early 30s, Carnegie had become a very wealthy man. In the early 1870s, Carnegie co-founded his first steel company. Over the next few decades, he created a steel empire, maximizing profits and minimizing inefficiencies through ownership of factories, raw materials and tran...

    Read More

  • The American Dream

    673 Words  | 2 Pages

    "The American Dream" is that dream of a nation in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with options for each according to capacity or accomplishments. It is a dream of social stability in which each man and each woman shall be able to achieve to the fullest distinction of which they are essentially competent, and be distinguish by others for what they are, despite of the incidental conditions of birth or stance. The American Dream is often something that humanity wonders about. What is the American dream? Many people discover success in a range of things. There are many different definitions of the American Dream. However, the American Dream embraces prosperity, personal safety, and personal liberty. The American dream is a continually fluctuating set of ideals, reflecting the ideas of an era.

    Read More

More about Andrew Carnegie Lived The American Dream

Open Document