Andrew Carnegie.

At age 12 in 1848, Andrew Carnegie immigrated with his parents from Dunfermline, Scotland to the United States. The family settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, where young Carnegie began working as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory before becoming a telegrapher. His father William Carnegie was a handloom weaver displaced by industrialization, and his mother Margaret instilled a love of learning.

By the 1860s, Carnegie had investments in railroads, sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He later founded the Carnegie Steel Company in Pittsburgh, which became the largest steel manufacturer in the world. In 1901, he sold the company to J.P. Morgan for $303,450,000, forming U.S. Steel. He also built Carnegie Hall in New York and the Peace Palace.

Carnegie married Louise Whitfield on April 22, 1887. The couple had one daughter, Margaret Carnegie Miller. He maintained a home in New York and a summer estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, where he died on August 11, 1919.

Carnegie’s 1889 essay The Gospel of Wealth argued that the wealthy should use their fortunes to benefit society, sparking a wave of philanthropy. He donated $350 million almost 90% of his fortune to found over 2,500 libraries, Carnegie Mellon University, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Carnegie Institution for Science. His influence is seen in the many institutions that bear his name, and he was posthumously inducted into the Library Hall of Fame.