3. Andrew Carnegie wrote his own “Gospel” on how billionaires such as himself have a responsibility to give their wealth away
Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie made a huge fortune – and gave around 85% of it all away before he died. Understandably, he regularly tops lists of the greatest philanthropists of all time, and institutions bearing his name can be found around the world. What’s more, “The Gospel of Wealth,” his 1899 essay on how the rich should use their good fortune to benefit others, remains and influential – and controversial – today as it was more than 100 years ago.
Carnegie was born in Scotland in 1835 but emigrated to America with his parents as a teen. As a young man, he worked as a telegrapher. He invested his wages wisely and, by the time he was in his mid-20s, had significant interests in the railroad and oil businesses. Carnegie also specialized in selling bonds, but it was in steel where he was to make his money. Using all his savings, he established the Carnegie Steel Company in Pittsburgh in 1892. Thanks to the construction boom, the firm did very well indeed and in 1901, he sold it to J.P. Morgan for $480 million.
Thanks to the money he made from the sale, Carnegie became America’s richest man. But he saw his wealth as a means to an end. As he argued in his “Gospel”, he believed private fortunes should be used to improve society, and he put his money where his mouth was. From 1901 until his death in 1919, he dedicated his life to large-scale philanthropy. He not only built Carnegie Hall in New York City, he also established Carnegie Mellon University, the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.
He didn’t forget the country of his birth, either, plus he paid for some 3,000 community libraries to be opened right across the world. By the time of his death, Carnegie had given away around $350 million (equivalent to $77 billion at today’s rate), making him one of the most generous men who ever lived. He is buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in New York.