To round up the month, today’s four (4) beautiful quotes are from a great and wealthy personality whose life has often been referred to as a true rags to riches story: “I SHALL ARGUE THAT STRONG MEN, CONVERSELY, KNOW WHEN TO COMPROMISE AND THAT ALL PRINCIPLES CAN BE COMPROMISED TO SERVE A GREATER PRINCIPLE” - Andrew Dale Carnegie “PEOPLE WHO ARE UNABLE TO MOTIVATE THEMSELVES MUST BE CONTENT WITH MEDIOCRITY, NO MATTER HOW IMPRESSIVE THEIR OTHER TALENTS.” ― Andrew Carnegie “A LIBRARY OUTRANKS ANY OTHER ONE THING A COMMUNITY CAN DO TO BENEFIT ITS PEOPLE. IT IS A NEVER FAILING SPRING IN THE DESERT.” ― Andrew Carnegie “A MAN WHO ACQUIRES THE ABILITY TO TAKE FULL POSSESSION OF HIS OWN MIND MAY TAKE POSSESSION OF ANYTHING ELSE TO WHICH HE IS JUSTLY ENTITLED.” ― Andrew Carnegie Born in November 25, 1835 in Scotland, in a typical weavers cottage with only one main room, consisting of half the ground floor which was shared with the neighboring weavers family. The main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. In 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street, following the demand for more heavy damask from which his father benefited. Falling on very hard times as a handloom weaver and with the country in starvation his father decided to move with his family to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 for the prospect of a better life. Andrews family had to borrow money in order to migrate. Allegheny was a very poor area. Andrews first job at age 13 in 1848 was as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His starting wage was $1.20 per week. Andrews father also started off working in a cotton mill but then would earn money weaving and peddling linens. His mother earned money by binding shoes. In 1850, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week. His new job gave him many benefits including free admission to the local theater. This made him appreciate Shakespeares work. He was a very hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburghs businesses and the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid close attention to his work, and quickly learned to distinguish the differing sounds in the incoming telegraph signals produced. He developed the ability to translate signals by ear, without having to write them down. Within a year he was promoted as an operator. Andrews education and passion for reading was given a great boost by Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night. Andrew was a consistent borrower and a self-made man in both his economic development and his intellectual and cultural development. His capacity, his willingness for hard work, his perseverance, and his alertness soon brought forth opportunities. Starting in 1853, Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed Andrew as a secretary/telegraph operator at a salary of $4.00 per week. At age 18, the precocious youth began a rapid advancement through the company, becoming the superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division. His employment by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company would be vital to his later success. The railroads were the first big businesses in America, and the Pennsylvania was one of the largest of them all. Andrew learned much about management and cost control during these years and from Scott in particular. Scott also helped him with his first investments. In 1855, Scott made it possible for Andrew to invest $500 in the Adams Express, which contracted with the Pennsylvania to carry its messengers. The money was secured by the act of his mother placing a $500 mortgage on the familys $700 home, but the opportunity was only available because of Andrews close relationship with Scott. A few years later, he received a few shares in T.T. Woodruffs sleeping car company, as a reward for holding shares that Woodruff had given to Scott and Thomson, as a payoff. Reinvesting his returns in such inside investments in railroad-related industries: (iron, bridges, and rails), Andrew slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later success. Throughout his later career, he made use of his close connections to Thomson and Scott, as he established businesses that supplied rails and bridges to the railroad, offering the two men a stake in his enterprises. Before the Civil War, Andrew arranged a merger between Woodruffs company and that of George Pullman, the inventor of a sleeping car for first class travel which facilitated business travel at distances over 500 miles (800 km). The investment proved a great success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Andrew. The young Andrew continued to work for the Pennsylvanias Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service. After the war, Andrew left the railroads to devote all his energies to the ironworks trade. Andrew worked to develop several iron works, eventually forming The Keystone Bridge Works and the Union Ironworks, in Pittsburgh. Although he had left the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he remained closely connected to its management. When he built his first steel plant, he made a point of naming it after Thomson. As well as having good business sense, Andrew possessed charm and literary knowledge. Andrew believed in using his fortune for others and doing more than making money. He wrote: “I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum! Beyond this I need ever earn, make no effort to increase my fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes”. Andrews mother had not wanted him to get married. After she died in 1886, he married. In 1897, the couple had their only child, a daughter, whom they named after Andrews mother. In 1901, Andrew was 66 years of age and considering retirement. He reformed his enterprises into conventional joint stock corporations as preparation to this end. Andrew devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall, and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others. His life has often been referred to as a true rags to riches story. He died in August 11, 1919.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 06:33:45 +0000
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