Andrew Carnegie

979 Pages·2007·3.77 MB·English

by  David Nasaw

Praise for Andrew Carnegie
“David Nasaw’s fascinating new biography…is a marvelous window onto the man and his world…. I
expect it will be the definitive work on Carnegie for the foreseeable future, and it fully deserves to be.”
—John Steele Gordon, The New York Times
“Never has this story been told so thoroughly or so well as David Nasaw tells it in this massive and
monumental biography.”
—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
“Nasaw’s Carnegie is a man of enthusiasms, and the author captures his ebullience in limpid prose, making
his biography a delight to read.”
—Steve Fraser, The Nation
“David Nasaw’s Andrew Carnegie is the first full scale biography of the steelmaker-turned-philanthropist in
thirty years…. [It] belongs in the library of anyone intrigued by the life and times of one of America’s most
memorable business leaders.”
—Chicago Tribune
“The great strength of this immense biography is the way in which David Nasaw causes these tributaries—
capitalism, radicalism, and educational aspiration—to converge like the three rivers (the Allegheny, the
Ohio, and the Monongahela) whose confluence makes the site of Pittsburgh possible.”
—Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic
“Rich and absorbing.”
—BusinessWeek
“A terrific writer.”
—The Seattle Times
“Nasaw delivers a vivid history of nineteenth-century capitalism.”
—Fortune
“Masterful.”
—James Nuechterlein, Commentary
“Nasaw is an indefatigable researcher.”
—Pittsburgh Post Gazette
“[An] important contribution.”
—Financial Times (London) “For all his ruling-class narcissism and his stupefying ignorance of his
workers’ lives, he comes across in Nasaw’s pages as a fascinating and ultimately likeable figure or an
indefatigable researcher.”
—Jackson Lears, The New Republic
“Mr. Nasaw’s account of Andrew Carnegie’s life and career is the most complete to date.”
—Albert B. Southwick, Worcester Telegram & Gazette
“Nasaw…understands narrative well, making the Carnegie biography a lively reading experience as well as
a rewarding scholarly mission.”
—Steve Weinberg, Houston Chronicle
“A rich reappraisal of the Gilded Age giver of libraries at a time when Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are
gifting fortunes and recalling Carnegie’s dictum, ‘He who dies rich, dies disgraced.’”
—James Pressly, Bloomberg.com “The new biography by Professor David Nasaw has generated rare
critical unanimity in proclaiming it definitive…. Nasaw has consulted significant new sources and has
probably told us as much about Carnegie as can ever confidently be known or conjectured.”
—The Scotsman
“Make no mistake: David Nasaw…has produced the most thorough, accurate and authoritative biography of
Carnegie to date…. It speaks highly of Nasaw’s prowess as a researcher…that he has uncovered entire
episodes previously unknown to historians.”
—T. J. Stiles, Salon
“The definitive biography.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“With clear eye and fair mind, David Nasaw has written the definitive modern biography of Andrew
Carnegie.”
—Michael Fellman, The Vancouver Sun
“Nasaw’s portrait of Carnegie is one of the most fascinating biographies in many years.”
—BookLoons
PENGUIN BOOKS
ANDREW CARNEGIE
David Nasaw is the author of the nationally bestselling biography The Chief: The
Life of William Randolph Hearst, winner of the Bancroft Prize, the J. Anthony
Lukas Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and finalist for the National Book
Critics Circle Award for Biography; Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public
Amusements; and Children of the City: At Work and at Play. He is currently a
Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University
of New York. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Condé
Nast’s Traveler, the London Review of Books, The New York Times, The Wall
Street Journal, and other publications. He lives in New York City.
ANDREW CARNEGIE
DAVID NASAW
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA)
Inc. 2006
Published in Penguin Books 2007
Copyright © David Nasaw, 2006
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Nasaw, David.
Andrew Carnegie / David Nasaw.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-1-1012-0179-4
1. Carnegie, Andrew, 1835–1919. 2. Industrialists—United States—Biography.
3. Philanthropists—United States—Biography. I. Title.
CT275.C3N37 2006 2006044840
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
ONE: Dunfermline, 1835–1848
TWO: To America, 1848–1855
THREE: Upward Bound, 1853–1859
FOUR: War and Riches, 1860–1865
FIVE: Branching Out, 1865–1866
SIX: A Man of Energy, 1867–1868
SEVEN: “Mr. Carnegie Is Now 35 Years of Age, and Is Said to Be
Worth One Million of Dollars,” 1870–1872
EIGHT: “All My Eggs in One Basket,” 1872–1875
NINE: Driving the Bandwagon, 1875–1878
TEN: Round the World, 1878–1881
ELEVEN: Making a Name, 1881–1883
TWELVE: Mr. Spencer and Mr. Arnold, 1882–1884
THIRTEEN: “The Star-spangled Scotchman,” 1884
FOURTEEN: Booms and Busts, 1883–1885
FIFTEEN: The “Millionaire Socialist,” 1885–1886
SIXTEEN: Things Fall Apart, 1886–1887
SEVENTEEN: A Wedding and a Honeymoon, 1887
EIGHTEEN: The Pinkertons and “Braddock’s Battlefield,” 1887–
1888
NINETEEN: Friends in High Places, 1888–1889
TWENTY: The Gospels of Andrew Carnegie, 1889–1892
TWENTY-ONE: Surrender at Homestead, 1889–1890
TWENTY-TWO: “There Will Never Be a Better Time Than Now to
Fight It Out,” 1890–1891
TWENTY-THREE: The Battle for Homestead, 1892
TWENTY-FOUR: Loch Rannoch, the Summer of 1892
TWENTY-FIVE: Aftermaths, 1892–1894
TWENTY-SIX: “Be of Good Cheer—We Will Be Over It Soon,”
1893–1895
TWENTY-SEVEN: Sixty Years Old, 1895–1896
TWENTY-EIGHT: “An Impregnable Position,” 1896–1898
TWENTY-NINE: “We Now Want to Take Root,” 1897–1898
THIRTY: The Anti-Imperialist, 1898–1899
THIRTY-ONE: “The Richest Man in the World,” 1899–1901
THIRTY-TWO: “The Saddest Days of All,” 1901
THIRTY-THREE: “A Fine Piece of Friendship,” 1902–1905
THIRTY-FOUR: “Apostle of Peace,” 1903–1904
THIRTY-FIVE: “Inveterate Optimist,” 1905–1906
THIRTY-SIX: Peace Conferences, 1907
THIRTY-SEVEN: Tariffs and Treaties, 1908–1909
THIRTY-EIGHT: “So Be It,” 1908–1910
THIRTY-NINE: The Best Laid Schemes, 1909–1911
FORTY: “Be of Good Cheer,” 1912–1913
FORTY-ONE: 1914
FORTY-TWO: Last Days, 1915–1919
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX