ANDREW CARNEGIE PRINCE OF STEELNARRATOR On November 25th, 1835 i.docx

ANDREW CARNEGIE PRINCE OF STEEL
NARRATOR On November 25th, 1835 in Dunfermline,
Scotland , William Carnegie plied his trade on the handloom
which filled the first floor of his humble stone bungalow. But
his mind that day was not on making fine linen cloth. His
wife, Margaret , was in labor in the other room of their home, a
small attic. That night, she gave birth to their first child, a son
they named Andrew . The child's father, William , was a fine
craftsman who provided a comfortable home for his wife and
son, but his business was devastated by the
textilefactories. William Carnegie refused to seek work in the
factories and the family suffered through the poverty caused by
his pride. It was Andrew's mother, Margaret , who supplied the
strength to keep the family together. From her
example, Andrew learned the value of hard work at an early
age. Even then while doing his chores, he showed contempt for
things that stood in his way. One of his jobs was to fetch water
from the town well. By custom, the townspeople put out their
buckets to form a line the night before. But Andrewgot tired of
watching late risers take their place in front of him. One
morning, he simply kicked their buckets out of theway and took
his place at the head of the line. No one stopped him. Going to
school wasn't mandatory and Andrewdidn't start until he was
eight. Most of his early education was learned at the feet of his
father and uncles, George Lauder , who ran a grocery market,
and Tom Morrison , a fiery public speaker whose working-class
opinions about the wealthy antagonized powerful people.
Young Andrew would learn there was a price to pay for
his Uncle Tom Morrison'sconfrontations with political
foes. From his bedroom window,Andrew could see the tree line
of the beautiful PittencrieffEstate, which contained ruins from
the historical legacy ofMary , Queen of Scots. Just once a year,
the owner of the estate allowed the public to come in and stroll
the grounds, with one exception. He barred anyone related to

a Morrison . So Andrew was forced to stay outside while all of
his playmates were allowed to go into the park. The pain of this
annual event in his young life would forever
color Carnegie'sattitudes about his personal right to freedom of
expression and his belief in the equality of all men. By
the winter of 1847, another kind of pain would threaten the
Carnegie family, which now included his brother, Tom , born
in 1843 . DespiteMargaret's valiant efforts, they faced a
prospect of soup lines to survive. Against everyone's advice,
she decided to uproot the family and immigrate to America ,
where she had relatives living in Pittsburgh . Twelve-year-
old Andrew was afraid of leaving the only home he'd ever
known. He would later write of his departure from Scotland , " I
remember I stood with tearful eyes as my
beloved Dunfermline vanished from view." Andrew had never
seen the sea when they booked passage on the converted
whaling ship, the Wiscasset, bound forAmerica . On May 17,
1848 , as the family boarded, a distraught Andrew had to be
carried onto the ship by a sailor.On board, families were
segregated by sex, and all thepassengers endured steerage
conditions. Packed together and poorly fed, many were sick the
entire 50-day journey toNew York . But Carnegie , as he would
all his life, adapted.He learned everything he could about the
ship and was quickly trusted by the sailors to help with their
work. Soon, he was even a guest at their special
Sunday dinners. As theyarrived at the New York docks, the
family was met by a barrage of sales agents, hawking fares up
the Hudson River through the Erie Canal. The sheer size
of America was overwhelming. Margaret , who was
nearly penniless, had no idea it was still so far to their final
destination. She bargained hard for the cheapest tickets. Finally,
after two months of hardship, the Carnegies arrived by
paddlewheel steamer in Pittsburgh where they were met by
relatives. They settled in aback alley house in
the Allegheny slum known as Slabtown, and once again faced
the battle to survive. Andrew was 13, and his schooldays were

over. He got a job for a $1.20 a week in the isolated boiler room
of a thread factory. He might have ended up in the dead end of
child labor, but for the one thing that pursued Andrew all his
life, luck. Playing a game in a tavern, an uncle happened to hear
that the O'Reilly Telegraph was looking for a messenger. He
mentioned it toAndrew , who got the job.
08:25JOSEPH WALL Biographer of Andrew Carnegie
JOSEPH WALL The first thing he did was learn every street in,
in downtown Pittsburgh and every businessman in every house
on the street. So he got the reputation of delivering the
messages, the telegrams, faster than anybody else.
08:40NARRATOR Becoming a messenger
expanded Andrew'sworld and his circle of friends. With other
Scottish immigrants, he helped create the Webster Debate
Society where he could hash over the burning issues of the day.
And he found ways to use his lowly job. When the Pittsburgh
Theater had a telegram, Andrew arranged to deliver it during
the play. He persuaded the management to let him watch from
the balcony. He memorized entire acts of Shakespeare ,which he
could recite while playing all the parts. Between
deliveries, Andrew hung around the telegraph office. He not
only learned the Morse code, but his agile mind also mastered
changing new technology, which he turned to his advantage.
09:30JOSEPH WALL When a telegraph message came in, it had
to be put on a magnetic tape, and then the tape
translated.Carnegie is probably the second person in the United
Stateswho could get the message just by listening to the
differences between the dits and the dots.
09:50NARRATOR Andrew was quickly promoted to full-
timeoperator and then made responsible for receiving foreign
news. He was so obsessed by the job that he got annoyed if the
transmission broke down and had to be resent. He preferred to
guess at the missing bits and fill in the details himself. Who
knows how much of Pittsburgh's news sprang from the
imagination of a 16-year-old? Andrew worked long hours. He
had to. He had replaced his father as the family

breadwinner. William was never able to adapt to his new life,
and the family continued to suffer in poverty. In
contrast, Andrew seemed to feed on the energy of his adopted
country. He would walk five miles after work to learn double-
entry bookkeeping. The only libraries that existed were private,
but when one was opened to schoolchildren, Carnegie read
anything he could get his hands on until one day, the privilege
of using the library was taken away.
10:55KENNETH MILLER great grandson
KENNETH MILLER He couldn't use it because he was a
working child instead of in school, and he immediately dashed
off a letter to the newspaper, anonymously saying that he
thought that it was the will of the donor that the library be
opened to all of the children of Pittsburgh . And indeed, they
opened the library. He found the power of the pen compelling,
and from then on, he was never without a pen or indeed without
a book.
11:25NARRATOR Andrew had fought for his love of learning
and won. But as much as this victory thrilled him, he was
witnessing a personal defeat that would mark
him forever.Andrew's increased responsibilities required that he
travel throughout Pennsylvania . He found himself working the
same territory as his father, who chose to peddle his meager
output of linens up and down the Allegheny River .
11:55JOSEPH WALL It was there one day that Andrew met his
father. Andrew had a stateroom on the boat. His father with his
packet of linens was sleeping out on the deck that night.And
there's a poignant meeting of the two. Ah, here's a successful
young boy, 18 years old, and here is a father, defeated by the
modern world.
12:20NARRATOR Andrew loved his father but despised the
failure he represented. On the other hand, Andrew revered his
mother. She was demanding and tough, forging in her son an
iron will to succeed.
12:35LINDA HILLS great granddaughter
LINDA HILLS Her role in molding his character should never

be underestimated. Andrew himself was devoted to her in every
respect, and he deeply loved his mother.
12:55NARRATOR But even this formidable mother-and-son
team could not prevent the inevitable. Broken by years of
failure,Will Carnegie died on October 2, 1855 ,
leaving Andrew as the source of support for his brother
and mother. But Andrewwas not afraid of the future. One day,
he came home and found his mother crying. When he asked her
why, she told him the move to America had been a mistake.
13:20JOSEPH WALL And at that point, Ah, Andrew said,
"Don't worry, Mother. Someday, I will get a carriage with fine
horses and we'll ride down the street."
13:30NARRATOR Their hardship had bonded mother and son
with a strength no one could come between. But Andrew wasn't
earning the kind of money that makes such fairy tales come
true. However, he was about to make a decision that would
change his life forever. In the early 1850's , America was
caught up in the excitement of expansionism. Railroads pushed
Westward. Andrew saw that his adopted country was a land of
opportunity. In 1882 , Pennsylvania Railroadexecutive Tom
Scott offered Andrew a chance to leave the security of O'Reilly
Telegraph to become his assistant. He took the risk, gambling
that one day he could become a manager instead of an
employee. Andrew realized he need to improve his social skills
to excel in these new surroundings.
KENNETH MILLER He formed a relationship with ah, a young
woman in Pennsylvania to be trained in social graces which
accounted later for his success at the, at the dinner table in the,
in the homes in Pittsburgh .
14:40NARRATOR As Andrew honed his business skills at the
Pennsylvania Railroad, the country was facing the problems
which would lead to the Civil War. The issue, "Equality for all
versus slavery." Carnegie hitched his political allegiance to a
working-class politician from Illinois , Abraham Lincoln .
15:00KENNETH MILLER There was never any question in

great grandfather's mind about the issue of slavery
and abolition. He was a fierce abolitionist. And it was certainly
consistent with every other aspect of, of his life. He believed in
the, the uhm, genius of the human spirit and human mind.
15:25NARRATOR By 1859 , Andrew Carnegie had been
promoted to the head of the Western Division of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. He was 24 years old, well on his way to
being an accomplished executive. But his boss, Tom Scott , was
about to teach Andrew his most important lesson in business,
how capitalism works. Scott would loan Andrew$600 to invest
in Adams Express stock. To cover the
collateral, Andrew's mother agreed to put up the only thing they
had, their home. And while Carnegie's first dividend check was
for $10, it was a revelation. He wrote, "The money was
something I had not worked for with the sweat of my brow.
Eureka, I cried. Here's the goose that lays the golden eggs."
Using his dividends and whatever money he could squeeze from
his railroad salary, Carnegie invested inbusinesses he knew, like
the telegraph, or in companies associated with the railroad. He
recognized that railroad expansion meant longer trips and
correctly guessed thatpeople would want to use the new
invention, the sleeping car. He thought the design
was ingenious: the comfort of a fold-out bed at night,
converting to a spacious lounge by day. Carnegie backed his
belief with an investment in the Woodruff Sleeping Car
Company, a move which was the real beginning of
the Carnegie fortune. He would later say, "The first
considerable sum I ever made was from this source.Blessed be
the man who invented sleep." As war threatened the
country, Tom Scott , Andrew's mentor, asked him to
joinPresident Lincoln's team of civilian advisors
in Washington . Andrew was put in charge of telegraph
communications for the first real battle of the Civil War, the
Battle of Bull Run.
JOSEPH WALL Andrew was riding along a train and saw that

one place, Southern sympathizers had pulled the telegraph lines
down and were holding them with a stake. Andrewleaped off the
handcar, went over and pulled up the stake, and the telegraph
wire came zooming up past his face and cutting across the
cheek. He always claimed he was the firstah, casualty of the
Battle of Bull Run .
17:45NARRATOR But it was the hundreds of other casualties
from the battle that would mark him forever, leading to his later
conviction that, "War must become as obsolete as
cannibalism." After his war experience, Carnegie returned
toPittsburgh and went back to work for the
PennsylvaniaRailroad. But his passion was capitalism. In a
series ofinvestments which often included his younger
brother, Tom ,Carnegie began taking chances. He pulled off a
merger with the Pullman Sleeping Car Company, being careful
to negotiate controlling interest. He was always fascinated by
new technology. So when an inventor showed him how wooden
bridges could be replaced by ones made of iron, he became
a partner in the Keystone Bridge Company, the first big step in
what would become his passionate commitment to iron, and
eventually, steel. By 1865 , Carnegie'sinvestments were so
successful that he resigned from the Pennsylvania Railroad. It
was the last salaried position he would ever
hold. By 1867 , Andrew was doing so well that he and his
mother moved to New York , a city he considered the center
of the world. They moved into the luxurious St. Nicholas Hotel
where Margaret could finally have her extravagant lifestyle.
But Andrew hungered for a different kind of fulfillment. His
business connections and substantial wealth certainly entitled
him the membership in New York'selite society. But he wasn't
interested in people or events which simply glorified money.
19:20JOSEPH WALL He liked to collect poets and
essayists and, and novelists and scientists. Whereas, other men
of great wealth like J. P. Morgan or Henry Clay Frick , ah, or
theRockefellers were gathering art, Carnegie gathered
intellectuals.

19:45NARRATOR Andrew began increasingly running
hisbusinesses which were largely centered in Pittsburgh from
afar. He sold bonds in the financial markets
of England andFrance , selling an incredible $30 million worth
in five years. But then he simply stopped selling bonds because
he didn't like trading paper and speculating on the achievement
of others. For Andrew , making the product was important just
as it had been for his father. Even so, he was a very rich young
man. In 1868 , when he was 33, Carnegie added up his
investments and was astonished to find he had a guaranteed
annual income of $50,000 in a time when a bottle of milk
delivered to your doorstep cost a nickel. One late December
night, in a note he wrote to himself, he debated the very
personal question of whether he would continue making money
or devote himself to the betterment of mankind. He resolved
that by age 35, he would turn all his attentions to education,
writing and philanthropy.
20:50KENNETH MILLER Nobody was watching over his
shoulders certainly as he, as he wrote that letter. Ah, but in the
end, he was able fairly quickly to put aside the notion that he
would step out of business because he just felt the rush of the
enterprise.
21:05NARRATOR He was consumed by it. By 1869 , when the
last spike was driven in the new Transcontinental
Railroad,Carnegie had begun a business strategy of vertical
organization. He wanted ownership of the resources he needed,
their delivery system and the final manufacture of the product.
He'd always had a wide variety of investments, but vertical
organization began to alter his business philosophy so much that
one day, he would sum it up by saying, "Put all your eggs in one
basket. And then watch that basket." Carnegie's basket would
be woven of steel, and an1872 trip to England revealed how it
would be made. Until then, steel was made in small crucibles
and production was measured in pounds. The invention of a
forced-air system known as the Bessemer Steel
Process promised production measured in tons. Carnegie , as he

did so often, saw thefuture in this technology and hired the
people who could make the future his.
22:05KENNETH MILLER Great grandfather always said that if
you took from him all of his railroads and all of his steel mills
and all of his money and left him his people, that he
could rebuild Carnegie Company in four years. I think he
really believed that the people were always the key to his
success, the, thegenius of the people he surrounded himself
with.
22:35NARRATOR The managers Carnegie hired often worked
for him all of their lives. They supervised wave after wave of
newly arrived immigrants who paid the price of loyalty with
their backbreaking work. In just 24 years, Carnegie himself,
once an exploited victim of child labor, now commanded
thousands of low-paid employees within the growing empire
of Carnegie Steel. He insisted on plowing money back
intoexpansion, pressuring his junior partners into giving up
their profits for the sake of growth. He was ferocious about
cutting costs, and yet, any innovation to improve production
was immediately installed.
23:20JOSEPH WALL He built a magnificent new blast furnace.
It cost several million dollars. Andrew said, "Isn't this a
miracle? Isn't this wonderful?" And his Chief
Superintendent,Charlie Schwab , said, "Oh, it's a fine blast
furnace. But if I had known what I know now, I would have
built it differently and I could have saved 1/10 of one cent on
every ton of steel we make." And Andrew calculated quickly in
his mind the amount, number of tons of steel they were making,
he said, "Tear it down. We'll build it the way it should have
been built."
24:00NARRATOR In just over 30 years, Carnegie had risen
from a penniless immigrant to become a captain of industry.
Only5'3", this charming bachelor nevertheless towered
over New York's thriving social scene. A true
optimist, Carnegie would often sign off his correspondence with
the phrase, " All is well since all grows better." But

in 1880 , Andrew came upagainst the force that he had never
before encountered in his life. In the spring of 1880 , life for
44-year-old AndrewCarnegie was a far cry from the poverty of
his youth. He was now a multimillionaire who owned a string of
fine horses. He was fond of riding in Central Park where he
was often accompanied by well-bred young women. But then, he
found himself increasingly asking just one woman, Louise
Whitfield, to be his companion. Of his first great love, he would
write, "Other young ladies were on my list. In the end, the
others faded into ordinary beings as Whitfield remained alone
as the perfect one beyond any I had met."
25:05BARBARA LAWSON grandaughter
BARBARA LAWSON Grandma and Grandpa did many things
together, but because he had promised his mother,Margaret
Morrison Carnegie , not to marry in, in her lifetime. They did,
they just had the friendship and kept it that way, although they
talked about, and they were engaged off and on once in a while,
but it was never let, it was never, it was secret. It was kept
secret.
25:35NARRATOR In 1881 , Andrew planned the coach trip
throughBritain that was to be the fulfillment of the moment in a
splendid coach, pulled by fine horses that Andrew had promised
his mother so many years ago in the desperation of
the Pittsburgh slums. The highlight of the trip was a triumphant
return to Scotland and the gift of his first library, a heartfelt
gesture to his beloved hometown.
25:55ERIC SIMPSON Scottish historian
ERIC SIMPSON As a coach came up the hill, they stopped for a
time at the small cottage where Carnegie had, had been born,
and Andrew Carnegie's eyes of course filled with tears. And
then it continued up into the high street where the
cheering crowds come out along to see and welcome this ah,
generous Scottish American.
26:20NARRATOR But back in America , the mid-
1880s became extremely difficult. Andrew's on and
off relationship withLouise deteriorated. There were business

problems. The staple of his company, manufacturing and selling
rails, slowed dramatically as the railroad expansion drew to
aclose. 1886 was the darkest time of Carnegie's life. First, his
brother fell ill in Pittsburgh . Over the years, Tom had not
responded well to the constant pressure Andrew applied to his
business and he had taken increasingly to drinking. Then his
mother, Margaret , developed pneumonia and was house bound.
Within days of each other, Tom and Margaret died.
KENNETH MILLER : Tom and Andrew's mother's death hit
him very hard. He was sick himself at the time. He almost
died. Ah, he took months to recuperate.
27:15NARRATOR Eventually, Andrew poured himself back
into his work. Although he felt the loss of his mother, he was
also free of his vow not to marry until she had passed
away. Finally, after seven years of courtship, 51-year-
old Andrew married 29- year-old Louise .
27:35BARBARA LAWSON I think it was a marriage born
inheaven. Her beliefs were the same as his, their standards were
the same. Their goals were the same. And she just helped him
go where he wanted to go because she also wanted him to go
there.
27:50NARRATOR She also shared one of his strongest beliefs:
that money should not be left to family. Instead in this rare
recording of his own voice, he speaks of his responsibility
toward the less fortunate.
28:05ANDREW CARNEGIE "The man of wealth, thus
becoming the newest trustee and agent for his poorer brethren,
is bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and
ability to administer."
28:20NARRATOR But Carnegie's lofty thoughts about
dispensing his wealth were little comfort to the men, women
and children whose work created that wealth. Their
inheritancewas a struggle to survive on $2.50 daily wages with
no pensions or benefits. Their perceptions of Andrew
Carnegiewere forged by the 12-hour days, seven days a week

that were the rule in plants owned by their boss and
his industrial partners like Henry Frick .
28:50GEORGE DEBOLT grandson of steelworker
GEORGE DEBOLT You'd see men with no hands, men missing
arms, um, missing legs. What's even more pathetic is you would
'd see kids because you could work in the mill as a, as a 12
year-old. Carnegie knew what the conditions were like in the
mills. He had visited the mills -- he'd been inHomestead -- and
so did Frick , and they knew what was going on and let it
continue because it simply increased their profits.
29:20NARRATOR Finally, in 1889 , at the Bessemer steel plant
inHomestead, Pennsylvania , labor fought back with the only
weapon they've had, a strike. But management had all the
power, and an agreement was hammered out fairly easily
byCarnegie's major partner, Henry Clay Frick .
29:35GEORGE DEBOLT And you know if you didn't like the
job, they'd shove you because there were literally thousands of
other people wanting to get jobs in Homestead works.
29:45NARRATOR For years, Carnegie had managed his
holdings without having to be there. But perhaps, with his
brother,Tom , now gone, too much power was resting with his
junior partners. In Carnegie's absence, Henry Frick was running
the company. In 1892 , the labor agreement was up, and workers
throughout the industry wondered if the union would stand up
for their rights. The press picked up on the story, little
suspecting they'd soon be using words like murder, treason and
tragedy to describe events at Homestead .
JOSEPH WALL Carnegie , when he left for Scotland in the
spring 1892 , left orders with Frick to ah, break the union. The
difficulty in understanding what really happened between
ah, Carnegie and Frick and who is chiefly responsible for the
tragedy of Homestead , is that Carnegie said, "Use anymethods
you need to break the union. We will back you."
30:50NARRATOR Carnegie's understanding was that they
would simply close the plant until the workers

caved in. Frick took a more aggressive approach in plans that he
did not cable toCarnegie . Frick built a fence around the
Homestead plant and topped it with wire. At the end of June, he
shut down the plant as he'd been instructed but he
also contracted to hire 300 private Pinkerton guards. It would be
needed to keep order if he brought in scab workers. Years
before, Carnegiehad published his thoughts on the rights of
labor, he was proud of his working class roots and he had
written that workers had the right to form trade associations just
as employers did. He also wrote about scab labor, that no one
should take his neighbor's job. Now, his words were being
taunted as lies, and his proud name was about to be
linkedforever with one of the darkest moments in the history of
US labor.
31:45NARRATOR By late June of 1892 , the labor trouble
at Homestead had reached the boiling point. Carnegie ,
vacationed in Scotland while negotiations with the union broke
down. A fence topped with barbed wire stood between the
workers and their jobs. On July 1st, Henry Frick closed the
Homestead plant, and then Frick made a fateful decision. He
contacted the Pinkerton Detective Agency. In the early morning
darkness of July 6, 300 Pinkerton guards were secretly floating
on barges down the Monongahela River. They've been hired to
occupy the plant, and their plan was to slip ashore at
the Homestead landing.
32:25GEORGE DEBOLT grandson of steelworker
GEORGE DEBOLT My grandfather, George Debolt , was one of
the strikers. And of course, on July the 6th, he was much more
than a striker. He was a defender of his job but also his family,
his nine-month pregnant wife, um, his future son, their
community and their way of life.
32:50NARRATOR The Pinkerton boats were spotted passing
under a bridge. An angry mob met them at the dock. Shots were
fired. A Homesteader was killed. After 12 hours of fighting, the
Pinkertons were trapped on a burning barge.They begged to
surrender and were led toward jail.

33:10GEORGE DEBOLT They had to walk a gauntlet of not just
steelworkers, but their wives, their children. They were
furious and ah, proceeded to attack these Pinkertons. And the
three other Pinkertons got killed ah, during this running of
the gauntlet. And ah, all of the Pinkerton detectives were
injured in some way.
33:40NARRATOR The state militia was called in. Before it was
over 10 people had died. Union leaders were rounded up,
including George Debolt , who was charged with treason and
murder.
33:50GEORGE DEBOLT He was thrown into jail,
tried, acquitted by a sympathetic jury but blackballed from ever
working in the mill.
33:55NARRATOR Other strikers met the same fate as Debolt .
Before the end of July, the plant reopened. New unskilled
workers were hired at lower wages to replace former employees.
Given no choice, many former strikers broke ranks with
their union, trying to get their jobs back. Carnegie Steel seized
the chance to break the union completely. Company spies were
everywhere.
JOSEPH WALL That was probably the most dreadful place
in America , a place of terror and fear.
34:30NARRATOR Carnegie returned to Pittsburgh . He was
appalled by the violence and the deaths. No one knows how
much Frick told him by Transatlantic Cable, but Carnegienever
trusted Frick again. Carnegie tried to make amends by providing
community facilities.
34:45GEORGE DEBOLT I think that Andrew Carnegie , made
the library in Homestead so magnificent because he felt guilty.
He felt guilty as hell that men were killed ah, and that so many
people were injured. And this was his way of attempting to
maybe make peace with the community.
35:10NARRATOR But the damage was forever done. The
gloryCarnegie so enjoyed in becoming a public figure now
turned against him. Cartoons of the day turned his words of

tribute to labor into cruel jokes as they ridiculed him.
KENNETH MILLER The most important business failure of his
life and that haunted him throughout his life was of course, the
events at Homestead . The, I mean you can't, and he was the
boss. So I mean you can't absolve him of all of the, all of the
blame.
35:40NARRATOR However, the bottom line was
that Carnegiewon and labor costs were cut further.
Profits increased dramatically. Carnegie's holdings became
mind boggling. When massive iron ore deposits were discovered
inMinnesota , Carnegie leased them. Rail and shipping lines
were needed to get that ore to Pittsburgh . Carnegiecontrolled
them. When armor plating was needed as thecountry decided to
equip a standing army, Carnegie , a pacifist, was also a
pragmatist. He invested. Carnegie Steel's products were used in
building the greatest landmarks of the time: the Brooklyn
Bridge, New York skyscrapers, the Washington Monument. The
numbers were incredible. The Carnegie Company, which was
supposedly valued at 25 million, was returning yearly profits
over 20 million. But all this would pale beside events in his
personal life.
36:35LINDA HILLS great grandaughter
LINDA HILLS A dear friend of my great grandfather's hadlost
his wife in childbirth. And that was not uncommon,
andtherefore, he did not want to risk losing his
beloved Louise .And so they did not have children. But she
contracted typhoid fever and was extremely ill, and during this
time, she took a pillow and cradled it and rocked it, and it was
like she had a baby. And her doctor said to my great grandfather
that should she survive this fever, that she must be allowed to
have a child.
37:15NARRATOR And so on March
30th, 1897 , Carnegie became a father at age 62. Louise named
their daughter Margaretafter Andrew's mother. Andrew wanted a
special place for his new family to call home, and he found it in

the ruins of SkiboCastle in Northern
Scotland . Carnegie's renovation providedunheard of comforts
like central heating. He hired local contractors to restore the
stone walls and had stained glass windows. When he was done,
life at Skibo was like stepping into a fairy tale.
BARBARA LAWSON Coming to Skibo, there would be a
piperon the circular lawn in front of the house. And the castle
itself ah, was extraordinarily beautiful um, but very homey.Ah,
at night, the piper would come and pipe everyone into
dinner. And grandma and grandpa, they paired up with their
guests and led everyone in ah, to the dining hall.
38:20NARRATOR A frequent visitor to Skibo, King Edward
VII ofEngland , once offered to honor Carnegie by making him
a knight. Andrew's reply was, "Why would I want to be a knight
when I'm already the Prince of Steel?" And in fact,
entrepreneurs like Rockefeller and Carnegie had taken on the
luster of American royalty. But they were still ruthless men.
The 1800s were about to end. Whether they should be known
as robber barons or industrial statesmen, the empire builders
who had shaped the country's destiny prepared for the battles of
the 20th century. But soon, the Prince of steel would stand
alone. He was about to make the most profound decision of his
life. Turn-of-the-century New York was alive with
the possibilities of horseless carriages, mass production and the
standard of living unprecedented in history. Carnegiewas
involved in a bitter dispute with Henry Frick over buying
out Frick's shares. The battle threatened the stability of the
company. As a solution, one of Carnegie's partners, Charles
Schwab , secretly met with financier J. P. Morgan and suggested
the unthinkable, selling the Carnegie
holdings.When Morgan expressed interest, Schwab worked up
the courage to approach Carnegie .
39:35LINDA HILLS great grandaughter
LINDA HILLS My great grandfather listened and didn't say
very much and went home and thought about it that afternoon

and that night, and then the next day, and I think this is just
wonderful, on just a piece of paper, he wrote down the price he
wanted and how he wanted it paid. And he sent it off with a
courier to J.P. Morgan and it was a done deal.
40:05NARRATOR In January of 1901 , J.P. Morgan came to the
house, shook Carnegie's hand and said, " Mr. Carnegie , I wanna
congratulate you on being the world's richest man." The
total price for Carnegie Company and its holdings, $480
million, about 12 and a half billion in today's
economy. Carnegie placed 300 million in bonds in a New Jersey
vault to bankroll his future endowments.
BARBARA LAWSON Grandpa's philosophy of giving was
that, that a gift should be given but shared with the people who
were the benefactors of that gift. And so he would give
the libraries, but he would expect them to come to the
community and the people to give the books. And this way,they
would have more appreciation and take better care of,of the, the
gift that he had given them.
41:05NARRATOR Andrew only wanted to help people who
wanted to help themselves. The request he most loved to
grant were for his beloved libraries. The free public library did
not exist in the 19th century. There were private libraries and
there were society libraries. It was Carnegie's devotion to this
treasure he discovered in childhood that helped establish the
system which exists today. Giving, on this scale, had never been
done. And Carnegie discovered that giving away his money was
nearly as much work as making it. A note from his friend, Mark
Twain , addressed to "St. Andrew" summed up the problem. It
said, "Could you lend an admirer a dollar and a half to buy a
hymn-book with? God will bless you; I feel it. I know it. P.S.
Don't send the hymn-book, send the money. I want to make the
selection myself." Perhaps nothing his money could buy would
touch his soul as much as the gift he bought himself on
Christmas Eve 1902 . For 45,000 pounds, Andrew purchased the
estate he had been forbidden to visit outside his boyhood

window. He wrote, "My new title beats all. I am Laird of
Pittencrieff , the most sacred spot to me on Earth." The joys
of Carnegie's life centered around Skibo Castle. In his 60s, he
took up golf. He had, however, the same passion for recreation
he showed in business.
42:30LINDA HILLS My great grandfather really enjoyed
winning the golf games. And he was not a particularly gracious
loser. And so ah, some of the more familiar guests at Skibo
were tipped off that perhaps it might behoove them to let him
win.

ANDREW CARNEGIE PRINCE OF STEELNARRATOR On November 25th, 1835 i.docx

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