Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was only twelve years old when he started working in an office for twelve hours day getting paid less than a dollar. Andrew was a very hard working boy and his mother wanted him to succeed which led him to learning how to decode morse code at the age of sixteen. Andrew was then hired to work as the head of railroad and his road to being one of the richest men and American history started from there. Andrew gained his wealth by investing money in railroad companies and in exchange he would get a seat on the board of administration which at the time was a very prestigious job. At the time, the railroad industry was going through massive changes by switching all the railroad to steel which allowed Carnegie to gain even more money after he had invested most of it in steel companies. Carnegie soon took control over all the steel companies which allowed him to makeover 2 million every year, besides being a powerful man, Carnegie did not treat his workers the same way, they were paid the lowest annual salary and only had one day off in the whole year, this working schedule had caused his workers to turn against him and cause a worker’s strike. Carnegie was a selfish men and people said he put his needs before others. At the age of 75, Carnegie decided he wanted to spend most of his money because he states that “a man who dies rich dies disgraced”. Carnegie built libraries all over the united states and built a university with the rest of his funds. Carnegie did not die the richest men in america but he sure did have a lot of power over the united states economy.