In 1848, he came to the United States with his family. His first job was working, at age 12, in a textile factory. He worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. He earned barely enough money to stay alive.
Yet he didn’t give up. He was determined to work as hard as he could, and he was determined to understand the economic system. He not only worked in various factories, but he thought about how they were organized, and about who paid for the factory to be built, and who paid for the raw materials that came to the factory. He learned how products were distributed and sold.
Andrew Carnegie worked his way up in business, and eventually could save enough money to buy part of a business. Later, he owned his own business. By the time he died in 1919, he was one of the wealthiest people in America.
Through his own experience, Andrew Carnegie learned that it was possible for an immigrant to rise from the lower class to the middle class, and eventually to the upper class. He received no special help, had no privilege, and his family was unable to help him. Yet he succeeded.
Later in life, he wanted to help others who were poor, or were immigrants. He began massive charitable efforts. He donated money to build hospitals, schools, universities, libraries, and museums. Poor children received better healthcare and better educations, and had a chance to work their way up from poverty.
Driven by moral and spiritual convictions, he believed that people with wealth had a responsibility to use that money to improve society for all people. Andrew Carnegie wrote:
Thus is the problem of the rich and poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; entrusted for a season with a part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community.
He believed that the hundreds of millions of dollars he had earned were not his to keep. Andrew Carnegie understood that this money was only his temporarily, and that he was obliged to help others with it.
The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race in which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows save by using it year by year for the general good. This day already dawns.
The word ‘philanthropy’ refers, in the words of a common dictionary, to “the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes.” Andrew Carnegie helped people by giving away hundreds of millions of dollars.
That’s right: not millions of dollars, not tens of millions of dollars, but hundreds of millions of dollars. Hospitals, schools, universities, museums, and libraries in dozens of towns and cities exist still today because of Carnegie’s generosity more than a hundred years ago.
But he helped in other ways, too. His business activities were related primarily to steel. Steel was and is used to make everything from railroads to cars, from washing machines to airplanes.
Carnegie’s steel business provided thousands of well-paying jobs for working-class people. His steel company was a path out of poverty for many families.
The steel he produced also lowered the costs of consumer goods. Over the decades between 1870 and 1900, the price of many ordinary products sank. At the same time, wages were rising. Lower-class and middle-class families experienced an improvement in their standards of living.
To be sure, Carnegie didn’t do all this by himself. Other leaders were developing other industries during these same years. Notably, John Rockefeller developed the Standard Oil Company, which provided similar economic opportunities for workers. Many of these other business leaders, who created prosperity for families across America, were immigrants like Carnegie. Alexander Graham Bell, for example, who created the telephone industry, was also an immigrant who arrived in the United States with no money.
From Carnegie’s example, it is clear that America offers opportunities to poor immigrants. It is also clear that successful business leaders can help lower-class families rise up from poverty.
