In 1901, ready to retire and supported by his partners, Carnegie sold the Carnegie Steel Company and its associated mills to J.P. Carnegie’s steel mills proved to be extremely profitable, and it was in the steel industry is where Carnegie’s real fortune was made. Soon after, in the early 1870s, Carnegie turned his attention to steel manufacturing, which was still a new industry in the United States at the time (Nasaw). After resigning from the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1865, Carnegie went into the iron business, which proved to be successful (Krass, 2002).

Combined, these three investments made Carnegie a wealthy man and allowed him to further invest. During the war, Carnegie made three considerable investments that would later prove to be very profitable – oil, bridge-building, and iron (Krass, 2002).

When the Civil War broke out during 1861, the Union Army’s dependence on rail made the Pennsylvania Railroad a vital strategic priority (Nasaw, 2006), and Carnegie’s work with the railroad contributed to the war effort.

Here, there were many opportunities for promotion, and by the age of 24 was a president of a division of the railroad company (Krass, 2002). As a teenager he worked in a bobbin factory and as a telegraph messenger boy, and in 1853 he entered the railroad business at the age of 18 by taking a job with the Pennsylvania Railroad (Carnegie, 2006). Fortunately, this first job proved to be temporary, and Carnegie soon moved on to other jobs. Carnegie got his first job as a boy as a strike-breaking ‘scab’ at the Anchor Cotton Mills, after signing a contract agreeing to work illegal 12-hour work days (Nasaw, 2006), for which he earned $1.20 a week (Krass). Once in America, they traveled to Allegheny City, Pennsylvania - now a part of Pittsburgh- where Carnegie’s mother had family (Nasaw).Ĭarnegie’s formal education was minimal – he started school in Scotland at the age of eight and by the age of 13 he had immigrated to the United States and was working full-time to help support his family (Krass, 2002). In 1848 the Carnegies immigrated to the United States of America, traveling steerage, on a ship that took 50 days to get across the Atlantic (Krass, 2002). Andrew Carnegie – known as ‘Andra’ to his family – was born in 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland, to parents who were unable to afford a midwife to attend the birth (Nasaw, 2006). T he man who was to become one of the wealthiest individuals of his time came from rather inauspicious beginnings.

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