I really admire Andrew Carnegie. He is one of my heroes! His life and example are a testimony to me of hard work and giving back. He is an example that to earn your own way in life and to be loyal to family and God are most important. I love that he used his wealth to bless all.

“Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.” -Andrew Carnegie

The government didn’t take it from him with taxes and such, so they could decide what to do with it, and who to give it to. I like the idea and I believe that we are stewards of our own money. We decide how to share it and how to bless others. And I do believe we should, and have an obligation, to bless others with what God has given to us.

Andrew was born in Scotland in 1835. Things changed in their life and his parents became unable to provide for the family. His parents and younger brother moved to America. He got his first job at twelve years old, earning $1.20 a week. He worked hard and became a multi millionaire and in the year 1901 sold his business to JP Morgan for $480 million. Morgan created US Steel and Andrew became the richest man in the world. Can you imagine $480 million in the year 1901!! Wow, richest man, I’d say. By the time he died in 1919, he had given away 90% of his wealth. He didn’t just hand the money over to people, he made an institute that would make money available to universities and colleges, as well as, many other organizations and philanthropies. He made a way for the money to bless others, if they put an effort in to be blessed by it. I love that. You can read more about it at the link at the bottom of the post.

We came across his grave on a recent trip to New York. We visited the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and there it was. Bonus! I read a little about him and his life and was fascinated. What a great man!

I think the most impressive thing to me was that his grave site was so humble. There were housekeepers and others who were employed at the Carnegie household who were buried there too. Other families buried at the same cemetery had quite large mausoleums and extravagant head stones and such. I didn’t even know who they were, although their last name was familiar. What did they do with their life? I have no idea…but I know what Andrew did.

Here is a sample of the way he thought and his humble beginning.

Taken from The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie.

Introduction-
….”The eldest son of parents who were themselves poor, I had, fortunately, to begin to perform some useful work in the world while still very young in order to earn an honest livelihood, and was thus shown even in early boyhood that my duty was to assist my parents and, like them, become, as soon as possible, a bread-winner in the family. What I could get to do, not what I desired, was the question.”

“As the factory system developed hand-loom weaving naturally declined, and my father was one of the sufferers by the change. The first serious lesson of my life came to me one day when he had taken in the last of his work to the merchant, and returned to our little home greatly distressed because there was no more work for him to do. I was then just about
ten years of age, but the lesson burned into my heart, and I resolved then that the wolf of poverty should be driven from our door some day, if I could.”
The question of selling the old looms and starting for the United States came up in the family council, and I heard it discussed from day to day. It was finally resolved to take the plunge and join relatives already in Pittsburg. I well remember that neither father nor mother thought the change would be otherwise than a great sacrifice for them, but that “it would be better for the two boys.”
“In after life, if you can look back as I do and wonder at the complete surrender of their own desires which parents make for the good of their children, you must reverence their memories with feelings akin to worship. On arriving in Allegheny City (there were four of us: father, mother, my younger brother, and myself), my father entered a cotton factory. I soon followed, and served as a “bobbin-boy,” and this is how I began my preparation for subsequent apprenticeship as a business man. I received one dollar and twenty cents a week, and was then just about twelve years old. I cannot tell you how proud I was when I received my first week’s own earnings. One dollar and twenty cents made by myself and given to me because I had been of some use in the world! No longer entirely dependent upon my parents, but at last admitted to the family partnership as a contributing member and able to help them! I think this makes a man out of a boy sooner than anything else, and a real man, too, if there be any germ of true manhood in him. It is everything to feel that you are useful.”
“I have had to deal with great sums. Many millions of dollars have since passed through my hands. But the genuine satisfaction I had from that one dollar and twenty cents outweighs any subsequent pleasure in money-getting. It was the direct reward of honest, manual labor; it represented a week of very hard work – so hard that, but for the aim and end which sanctified it, slavery might not be much too strong a term to describe it. For a lad of twelve to rise and breakfast every morning, except the blessed Sunday morning, and go into the streets and find his way to the factory and begin to work while it was still dark outside, and not be released until after darkness came again in the evening, forty minutes’ interval only being allowed at noon, was a terrible task. But I was young and had my dreams, and something within always told me that this would not, could not, should not last – I should some day get into a better position. Besides this, I felt myself no longer a mere boy, but quite a little man, and this made me happy.”-Andrew Carnegie

Well, if you want to know more about my hero Andrew Carnegie, google him, or you can go here! I have his book “The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays”. It is very interesting and I have enjoyed reading it.

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution. -Andrew Carnegie