Mini Biographies of Scots and Scots Descendants

(1835-1919). An American manufacturer and philanthropist born in Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1848, after his family had emigrated to America, he got a job as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory of Allegheny City, Pa. He became successively telegraph messenger boy, operator, railway employee of the Pennsylvania Company, and superintended of the Pittsburgh division of the system. His fortune was begun through the Woodruff Sleeping-Car Company, and increased by land investments near Oil City, Pa. In 1868, he laid the foundation of his great steel industries which were finally consolidated in 1899 as the Carnegie Steel Company In 1901 he retired and the company became the "billion dollar" United States Steel Corporation. He collected $350 million, a sum which would today be reckoned in quite a few billion. After his retirement he distinguished himself by making large gifts of money for educational and philanthropic purposes, the total amount being $350 million. The most noteworthy gifts were for public libraries, the Carnegie Institute of Technology, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Carnegie Endowment for International peace. He created 2,800 libraries in the United States and Britain. He backed the founding of the St. Andrew’s Golf Club by John Reid in New York. He was "the richest and most free-handed Scot who ever lived." In the development of the steel business of Pittsburgh he was ably seconded by James Scott, George Lauder (his cousin), Robert Pitcairn, George Lockhart, and others — all Scots.