Essay on "Andrew Carnegie the 'Richest Man"

Essay 5 pages (2217 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Andrew Carnegie

The 'richest man in the world', as Andrew Carnegie was known during his lifetime and later, was born on November 25, in the year 1835. A real life 'rags to riches story', his life has often been quoted as an example of how one single individual can indeed make a difference in the world. Andrew Carnegie was born into an extremely impoverished Scottish family which had earlier immigrated to the United States of America, and it was through his own industry and hard work that he turned out to become one of the biggest names in the steel industry, and one of the richest men in America. He became a leading force and a name to be reckoned with in his field, and today he is known as an industrialist, a billionaire, and also as a philanthropist. It was Andrew Carnegie's opinion that the wealthy had a specific obligation to society, which was to give back what they had taken. This is the reason that he was one of the greatest philanthropists of his time, and he donated most of his wealth to certain important causes like education, and peace. (Andrew Carnegie: America's Story, from America's Library)

Andrew Carnegie, it is often stated, liked to promote his various ideas and concepts in print form, and, as a matter of fact, the young Andrew Carnegie had been rejected from a free membership to the 'Mechanics and Apprentices' Library', belonging to Col. James Anderson, and he had written numerous letters to the editor of Pittsburgh's 'Dispatch', and this won him a hard earned victory, and at the same time, fuelled his love for the printed word, and for seeing his own words in printed form, and he began to develop a keen interest in journalism at that time. It is also said that Andrew Carnegie was a man of contradictions. He was a millionaire and acknowledged as one of the richest men in the world, since he rose from virtually nothing into what he had become, he stressed that poverty would in fact help a great deal in forming the basic character of an individual. He never let himself forget the fact that his wealth had in fact been produced by the 'toilers of Pittsburgh', and he returned to the state, and to America, and to Scotland, and to England, and he became extremely spiritual, although he was not at all a religionist when he spoke of the laborers and the toilers who had produced his great wealth for him. (Andrew Carnegie, a Tribute)

In an insightful speech, Andrew Carnegie has stated that 'man does not live by bread alone', and that he had been a witness to many billionaires starving for a lack of spiritual nourishment and inner peace, while at the same time, there were many toilers who had found that evasive inner peace, which meant that they were more contented and happy than their wealthier counterparts. He also stated, "It is the mind that makes the body rich," and that he found great pity for those people who had immense wealth, and nothing else. He felt that it was his duty to give back to the very people of Pittsburgh who had made it possible for him to enjoy his wealth, and therefore, he gave away, towards the end of his life, more than $350, 695, 653 to the people of Pittsburgh, in order to bring to them 'sweetness and light', and after his death too, he made sure that almost $30,000,000 would be given away to charitable causes, like for example, to educational foundations and to pensioners.

It must be noted that Andrew Carnegie considered education as being the veritable 'key' to life, and he was also extremely interested and also committed to the cause of an access to information. It is said that one incident in particular alerted Andrew Carnegie to this important fact, in the libraries of Colonel Anderson in Allegheny City, an incident that seems to have motivated him into donating enormous amounts of funds to the cause of library building all over the United States of America. As a matter of fact, over the doors of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, are carved the words, 'Free to the People', and this shows the spirit and the thoughts of the man. (Andrew Carnegie, a Tribute)

Andrew Carnegie was the son of a weaver, who had come to the United States of America in the year 1848, and settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. He started to work as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill, when he was thirteen years old. Soon enough, he began to move through a succession of jobs with Western Union, and with the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was in the year 1865 that Andrew Carnegie resigned from his present job, in order to start his own business. Eventually, this young entrepreneur would be able to successfully establish the 'Carnegie Steel Company', which was in fact responsible for launching the steel industry in the state of Pittsburgh. When Andrew Carnegie was about sixty five years old, he sold his company to JP Morgan for a sum of $480 million, and he thereafter devoted the rest of his life towards philanthropic activities and to pursuing his other interest, writing. This was when he devoted time to writing his autobiography. (Carnegie Corporation of New York, Andrew Carnegie, Biography)

What is commendable about the charitable acts that Andrew Carnegie undertook was that although he gave away a lot of his wealth in the same way that many other wealthy people do, he was the first wealthy person to publicly declare that the rich did indeed have a moral obligation and a duty to give away their fortunes. In the year 1889, he wrote the 'Gospel of Wealth', in which he stressed on his view that, apart from serving the needs of the family, and personal benefits, all wealth must be put into a trust fund that would serve to benefit the various needs of the community. Andrew Carnegie followed this example himself, when he was barely thirty years of age, when he started to give away his accumulating wealth in the form of personal gifts and trust funds. Some of these gifts were in fact made to his own home town, Pittsburgh, and he later set up numerous charities and trust funds, and philanthropic and educational foundations, not only in the United States, like for example, the "Carnegie Corporation" set up in New York, but also several more in all parts of Europe.

Andrew Carnegie's dream was to set up free public libraries so that many people would be able to avail of free education and knowledge, and thereby, educate themselves, free of cost. When the idea was initially floated, in the year 1881, there were very less public libraries in the entire world. Subsequently, the Andrew Carnegie Corporation managed to establish more than 2,509 libraries throughout the entire English speaking world, investing about $56 million. However, this particular program had to end due to various reasons, in the year 1917, but the Carnegie Corporation managed to maintain an interest in improving library services throughout the world, for another 40 years. When Andrew Carnegie died in the year 1919 at Lenox, in Massachusetts, it must be said that the people of the world had lost a great man. (Carnegie Corporation of New York, Andrew Carnegie, Biography)

There were many influences on Andrew Carnegie, and these may have shaped his character and his life and his actions. One basic influence may have been his Scottish roots, and the abject poverty in which he had been living when he was in Scotland. Perhaps the egalitarian spirit of his extended family also played an Important role in his character, and some people state that since the city of Pittsburgh, when Andrew Carnegie happened to arrive, was one of the centers of the industrial America of the nineteenth century, the spirit of that state would also have had a major influence on Andrew Carnegie's character and played a major influence on him. However, many people opine that it was his mother, Margaret, who had a major influence on Andrew Carnegie, who has been acknowledged as the backbone of the family, with whom the 51-year-old bachelor Andrew Carnegie resided until her death. It was Margaret, who supposedly taught her young son the value of frugality, and she purportedly repeated often the words, "Look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves." It is often said that it was probably this very principle that served to make Andrew Carnegie one of the richest men in the entire world, at a later date. (Margaret Carnegie, Mother)

Perhaps, if Andrew Carnegie had not lived in poverty in the early years of his life, he may not have been so very interested in giving away his money to other people, or perhaps if he had not been interested in the written word, he may not have given millions away to… READ MORE

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