Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist who became a leading figure in the U.S. steel industry. Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, he emigrated to the United States as a child and rose from modest beginnings to build Carnegie Steel, later sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901, forming a core of U.S. Steel. Carnegie argued that great wealth carried moral obligations, a view he set out in his influential essay “The Gospel of Wealth” (1889). In later life he devoted much of his fortune to public causes, funding libraries, educational institutions, and peace initiatives.