Financial Growth of Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was the most famous industrialist, philanthropist, and one of the richest men in history. His fortune leads to the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century that left him making the most successful entrepreneur of that era. He rose from a poverty-stricken Scottish childhood to a leading philanthropist and one of the most prosperous American industrialists.

His parents sold their belongings in Scotland and emigrated to America in search of better job opportunities, when Carnegie was 13 years old. Andrew Carnegie worked at a cotton mill, telegraph company, and Pennsylvania railroad company before becoming the wealthiest and famous industrialists of his day. Despite gaining all the wealth and fame, he believed in giving back to the world by distributing the wealth to promote the welfare and happiness of society.

Struggling to make ends meet, ambitious & hardworking, Carnegie went on to hold a series of jobs. He started his first job as a bobbin boy at a cotton mill in 1848. Here, Carnegie worked for 12 hours each day, six days a week, earning a starting wage of $1.20 per week. Soon he moved on to a new job as a telegraph messenger. He proved himself a diligent employee and got promoted to telegraph operator

While working at the Ohio Telegraph Company, Andrew Carnegie caught the attention of
Pennsylvania Railroad Company superintendent Thomas Scott. In 1859, he succeeded his boss as railroad division superintendent. With the help of Scott, Carnegie started his investment career and bought ten shares of the Adams Express Company by risking everything he had. Eventually, this bold move paid him off as the dividends started coming in quickly.

Carnegie learned valuable management and investment lessons from Thomas A. Scott. He made profitable investments in a variety of businesses including iron, coal, & oil company and a manufacturer of railroad sleeping cars. With this risk-taking spirit and success of his investments, Carnegie worked his way up from that $1.20 a week to $50,000 a year in his 30s.

After leaving his post with the railroad, Carnegie used funds from his investments and co-founded his first steel company near Pittsburgh. With the revolutionary production methods, he dominated the steel industry and acquired his massive wealth. He created a steel empire, minimizing inefficiencies & maximizing profits through ownership of raw materials, factories, and transportation of steel infrastructure.

Andrew created two rules to guide him for success. The first was that, if costs are carefully monitored, the profits will take care of themselves. And secondly, the presence of wise & competent managers are worth more than the number of mills they ran.

However, after all the success in his career, Carnegie’s reputation was marred by the violent Homestead Strike in 1892 at his Homestead, Pennsylvania, steel mill. Nearly a decade later, in 1901, he sold Carnegie Steel to banker John Pierpont (J.P) Morgan for $480 million. After selling Carnegie Steel, he became the richest American for the next several years at that time.

After selling the steel mill, Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy and emphasized local libraries, education, world peace, and scientific research. He wrote an essay entitled “The Gospel of Wealth”, in which he stated that an industrialist should have two phases of life: one where he creates & accumulates wealth as much as he can, and the second where he gives it all away to benefit society. Carnegie has contributed a lot to the American economy and making the United States a major industrial power.