Andrew Carnegie

November 25, 2009

You may Listen or download this story in .mp3 format. or as a .wav file

Profile America — Wednesday, November 25th. One of the great figures of American industry, who rose from poverty to become the wealthiest man in the world, was born in Scotland on this date in 1835. Andrew Carnegie sold his steel mills in 1901 for a personal payoff of many billions of dollars in today’s money. Believing that such wealth carried a great responsibility, he turned to philanthropy. His best known legacy is the famous Carnegie Hall in New York City. But he also built and equipped some 1,700 public libraries around the country, mostly in small towns without such facilities. When Carnegie started building libraries, there were only 3,000 librarians in the U.S., today there are nearly 215,000. Profile America is a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau, now preparing for the 2010 Census.

Sources: Chase's Calendar of Events 2009, p. 563
Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 140
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2009, t. 596
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2009edition.html