Andrew Carnegie is a personified heroic character of Horatio Alger's that goes from rags to riches with hard work, dedication and a little bit of luck. Carnegie owes much of his success to what he learned in the railroads business. .
In 1835, change from handloom to steam loom weaving was disastrous to their family especially for the father. Looming was the family's trade for years now their skills were not needed. As a result of the emergence of the British industrial revolution the Carnegie family was forced to move to the new world from Dunfermline, Scotland in hopes of get a better future for their sons Andrew and Thomas Carnegie. .
Andrew Carnegie was a poor boy of an honest family that worked hard and studied at the same time, waiting for that gold chance promised by a dream in the new world. After getting it, he still pushed forward to validate the trust and confidence of his superiors. Carnegie went to school at night where he took some accounting classes to learn double-entry bookkeeping and read history as well as the classics on the weekend . As he went from a bobbin in a factory, office boy, messenger, part-time telegrapher, full-time telegrapher he pushed himself hard to master his duties and get the most out of each opportunity. Until luck would have it, Tom Scott a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad's offered Andrew Carnegie a job as secretary and personal telegrapher. When Thomas Scott became a vice-president of the line seven years later (1855) , Carnegie succeeded him as superintendent of the railroad's western division of the Pennsylvania Railroad until he retired in 1865 . .
When Carnegie entered the steel business in 1872, he brought with him several important lessons from his railroad experience. He was aware of the large expanding market for steel that railroads were creating with their need for track, bridges, and locomotives. Since he used to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad he took to heart the obsession of the railroad practice of low cost and high-volume operations.
