Carnegie, ANDREW

Carnegie, ANDREW, iron-master, was born 25th November 1835, in Dunfermline, whence his father, a humble weaver, emigrated in 1847 to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. After tending a small stationary engine for a time, young Carnegie passed through the grades of telegraph messenger and operator to railway clerk, and finally superintendent. Fortunate speculations in oil were followed by the establishment of a rolling-mill, from which has grown up the largest system of iron and steel works in the world. He has added a laboratory to Bellevue Hospital, in New York, and given large sums to found free libraries in Pittsburgh, Edinburgh, and other towns in the States and Britain. He has published records of his coaching tours and Triumphant Democracy (1886). He sold out for £40,000,000 in 1899, and settled at Skibo Castle in Sutherland.