Born in Dunfermline, Scotland on November 25, 1835, Andrew Carnegie entered the world in poverty. Carnegie became a distinguished citizen of the United States, and a philanthropist devoted to the betterment of the world around him. Andrew Carnegie became famous at the turn of the twentieth century and became a real life rags to riches story.
Carnegie received his only formal education during the short time between his birth and his move to the United States. The exposure to such political beliefs and his family's poverty made a lasting impression on young Andrew and played a significant role in his life after his family immigrated to the United States. When the Carnegies immigrated to America in 1848, Andrew determined to bring prosperity to his family. He worked many small jobs which included working for the Pennsylvania Railroad as a dispatcher and then division manager where he first recognized the importance of steel. At this time, young Carnegie, age 24, had already made some small investments that laid the foundations of his near future fortune. One of these investments was the purchase of stock in the Woodruff Sleeping Car Company.
In 1864, Carnegie entered the iron business, but did not begin to make steel until years later. In 1873, he built the Edgar Thomson works in Braddock, Pennsylvania, to make Bessemer steel. He established many other steel plants, and in 1892, he merged all of his interests into the Carnegie Steel Company. This act from Carnegie is fitting with one of his most famous quotations, "Put all of your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket." This firm became one of the greatest industrial enterprises in America. Carnegie later sold it to J.P. Morgan's United States Steel Corporation in 1901 for $400 million, which would be a little over $4 billion today! .
After retiring, Carnegie's fortune was estimated to be as large as half a billion dollars. From that time on, with the philosophy that the rich have a moral obligation to give away their money, he devoted himself to philanthropy.