ANDREW CARNEGIE: THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD | ARTICLE Biography: Andrew Carnegie

 At a time when America struggled -- often violently -- to sort out the competing claims of democracy and individual gain, Carnegie championed both. He saw himself as a hero of working people, yet he crushed their unions. One of the most successful entrepreneurs of his age, he railed against privilege. A generous philanthropist, he slashed the wages of the workers who made him rich.

One of the captains of industry of 19th century America, Andrew Carnegie helped build the formidable American steel industry, a process that turned a poor young man into the richest man in the world.

From Scotland to America

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1835. An ancient town that had taken pride in being Scotland's medieval capital, Dunfermline had fallen on hard times. Andrew's father was a weaver, a profession the young Carnegie was expected to follow. But by the 1840s, the royal castle lay in ruins, as did the town's once-booming linen industry, which had long enjoyed a reputation for producing the finest damask linens in Great Britain. The industrial revolution had destroyed the weavers' craft. When the steam-powered looms came to Dunfermline in 1847, hundreds of hand loom weavers became expendable. Andrew's mother went to work to support the family, opening a small grocery shop and mending shoes.

More details Birthplace of Andrew Carnegie in Dunfermline, Scotland, Copyright: Kilnburn.

Dunfermline weavers struggling to feed their families put their faith in a political panacea called Chartism, a popular movement of the British working class. The Chartists believed that by allowing the masses to vote and to run for Parliament, they could seize government from the landed gentry and make conditions better for the working man. Carnegie's father Will and his uncle Tom Morrison led the Chartist movement in Dunfermline. In 1842, Tom organized a national general strike. Will, meanwhile, published letters in various radical magazines and was president of one of the local weavers' societies. Despite the enthusiasm of the Dunfermline Chartists, Chartism fizzled out in 1848, after Parliament rejected the Chartists' demands for the final time.

"I began to learn what poverty meant," Andrew would later write. "It was burnt into my heart then that my father had to beg for work. And then and there came the resolve that I would cure that when I got to be a man."

Andrew's mother, Margaret, fearing for the survival of her family, pushed the family to leave the poverty of Scotland for the possibilities in America, about which she had heard encouraging reports. "This country's far better for the working man than the old one," assured Margaret's sister, who had lived in America for the last eight years.

The Carnegies auctioned all their belongings only to find that they still didn't have enough money to take the entire family on the voyage. They managed to borrow 20 pounds and find found room on a small sailing ship, the Wiscasset. At the harbor in Glasgow, they and the rest of the human cargo were assigned to tightly squeezed bunks in the hold. It would be a 50-day trip, with no privacy and miserable food.

The Carnegies, like many emigrants that year, discovered their ship's crew undermanned; they and the others were frequently asked to pitch in. Many were not much help; half the passengers lay sick in their bunks, the roll of the sea too much. It was grueling, but there was always hope. The passengers traded stories about the lives they would find in the New World.

Finally, New York City came into sight. The ships sailed past the plush farmland and forests of the Bronx, dropping anchor off Castle Garden at the lower end of Manhattan. It was still seven years before New York would build an immigration station there and nearly half a century before Ellis Island would open. The Carnegies disembarked, disoriented by the activity of the city but anxious to continue on to the final destination -- Pittsburgh.

The Carnegies booked passage on a steamer up the Hudson River to Albany, where they found a number of jostling agents eagerly competing to carry them west on the Erie Canal. At 35 miles per day, it was slow travel and not particularly pleasant. Their "quarters" were a narrow shelf in a hot, unventilated cabin. Finally, they reached Buffalo. From there, it was only three more trips by canal boat. After three weeks travel from New York, they finally arrived in Pittsburgh, the place where Andrew would build his fortune.