Born to a poor working-class couple, Andrew Carnegie rose to be one of the world’s richest men, and this book, Andrew Carnegie, tells that compelling tale, from his humble birth in a “gray stone cottage” in Dunfermline, Scotland, to his masterful development of a steel empire.
Those who would read this robust 801-page reflection will marvel at Carnegie’s will, drive, intellect, vision and ability during the embryonic capitalistic industrial age that was the turn of the 20th century. Author David Nasaw also addresses Carnegie’s ruthlessness and ignorance when it came to the thousands of poor laborers who made his wealth possible. This will forever be the paradoxical position of Andrew Carnegie: The man who was an insightful and kind philanthropist also played to win at all costs.
Carnegie openly shared his vision as to how individuals should handle the awesome burden of wealth attainment in his famous primer “Gospel of Wealth.” Nasaw conveys Carnegie’s support for the “steepest possible inheritance taxes.” Carnegie’s reasoning was clear — he believed that “the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.”
It was Carnegie’s desire to not focus his funds on the likes of Harvard, Yale and Columbia as he believed these universities were great centers of knowledge with vast resources stemming from robust endowments. Carnegie felt that he would have a much greater impact on small colleges’ existence with his investments/donations. Nasaw points to Mr. Carnegie’s pattern of grant funding as a prime example of the relationship he had with historically Black colleges and universities as well as numerous small majority colleges and universities across the United States.
Carnegie initially chose not to fund Atlanta and Fisk universities, claiming it was beneficial that these institutions support the newly freed slave population, however, he preferred Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee paradigm of Blacks learning technical skills for jobs available to them at the time.
Booker T. Washington contacted Carnegie in 1890 to solicit funds for Tuskegee and was awarded $20,000 for a library in 1900. Carnegie toured that library in 1906 and what he saw and experienced convinced him to further fund Tuskegee, with $620,000, and Washington’s alma mater, Hampton University, with $441,045.
Carnegie used his philanthropic funds to support his favored HBCUs, Tuskegee and Hampton universities. Carnegie went on to create the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, which covered tuition for any student in financial need.
