JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY 86

Christopher J. Castaneda, review of Andrew Carnegie, by David Nasaw,

Journal of Historical Biography 6 (Autumn 2009): 8689,
www.ufv.ca/jhb
.
. Journal of Historical Biography 2009. This work is
licensedunderaCreativeCommons3.0License
David Nasaw. Andrew Carnegie. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2006.
pp. 878.

David Nasaws comprehensive yet eminently readable biography of
Andrew Carnegie deserves the accolades it has received. This is a
fascinating account of one of the most remarkable men who lived
during the last two centuries. In an age in which the historical profes-
sion has rightly continued to focus more on bottom-up history to
redress the lack of attention to the common man, Nasaws book
shows why it is also important to remember that some elite histori-
cal figures represent a tremendous range of human experience. It is
difficult to identify a single person who would embody this range of
experience better than Andrew Carnegie.
Perhaps the most daunting aspect of Nasaws book is its
length. At 801 pages of text in the paperback edition, it requires time
and diligence. And while some reviewers have suggested that parts of
this biography are perhaps overplayed, it is fair to say that providing
a full picture of Andrew Carnegies life requires a very thorough
treatment in both research and writing. Nasaw has provided a pleas-
ingly comprehensive treatment of Carnegie, and the reader will get to
know him well.
For quite a few years, the Carnegie biography most often read
by college students has been Harold Livesays 1975 Andrew Carne-
gie and the Rise of Big Business. But there is no doubt that Nasaws
book provides a much more complete and even systematic view of
Carnegies life and career. This is due not only to the more extensive
treatment that more pages allow, but also to Nasaws additional re-
search. Well versed in the earlier scholarship on Carnegie, Nasaw
was able to examine new material located in public and university-
based archives, government documents, family papers, as well as un-
published oral histories, a wealth of correspondence and telegrams,
travel diaries, Civil War tax returns, and drafts of Carnegies own
memoirs.

REVIEWS 87

The outline of Andrew Carnegies life is well known. Born in

Dunfermline, Scotland in 1835, Carnegie, along with his mother, fa-
ther, and younger brother, set sail for America in 1848. Young
Andrew held successive jobs as a bobbin boy, telegraph office mes-
senger, and private telegrapher to Thomas Scott of the Pennsylvania
Railroad, and then moved up the ranks at the railroad. He later delved
into bond trading and investing, with a focus on iron and bridge
companies. And while seeking to establish himself as a man of let-
ters, (xiv) he literally oversaw the late-nineteenth-century
development of the American steel industry. After achieving a domi-
nating position over this industry, in the early twentieth century he
began to give away his fortune while lobbying far and wide for the
burgeoning peace movement.
Nasaw does a particularly good job of tracing Carnegies early
life as an opportunistic, if not optimistic, young immigrant whose
rise to early wealth and fame seemed almost like a natural conse-
quence of his clear-sighted intelligence. What is particularly
interesting about Carnegie is that, while he followed every right step
in taking advantage of a historical opportunity to eventually become
the leader of the steel industry, his true passion seemed to be found in
the life of the mind. His associations with Matthew Arnold, Mark
Twain, and Herbert Spencer underscored his desire to be in the com-
pany of the upper echelon of contemporary writers. While Carnegie
became increasingly insensitive to the plight of industrial labour as
his own wealth and power grew, his belief in the power of books re-
mained. This is most concretely demonstrated in his work of
establishing and providing funding for public libraries, initially in his
hometown of Dunfermline in 1880 and then the following year at the
Edgar Thompson steel mill in Pennsylvania. He would continue this
philanthropic effort for the rest of his life.
Andrew Carnegie truly desired to be a writer of significance.
Nasaw notes that the style of Carnegies writing had a sprightly
conversational tone.(191) Carnegie sent letters to the New York
Tribune in the 1850s, and later reported on the Battle of Bull Run to
the Pittsburgh Chronicle in 1861. In the fall of 1879, he published

88 JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY

his Notes on a Trip Round the World. While he was sometimes re-
ferred to as the Star-spangled Scotsman for such writings as
Triumphant Democracy (1886), Carnegie also expounded in a high-
profile interview with the New York Times on his curious views in
favor of Socialism, an interview which was printed on 2 January
1885. These views certainly seemed to contradict his own labour
practices. In 1889, the North American Review published what is
possibly his most famous work, the Gospel of Wealth.
Carnegies personal life was equally intriguing. Devoted to his
mother, Margaret, and her well-being, but clearly disappointed in the
life of his father, he married late. In 1887, fifty-one-year-old Andrew
Carnegie married Louise Whitfield. Twenty years his junior, she
willingly signed a prenuptial agreement. Nasaw explains: In return
for an annual income of $20,000 (more than $3 million today),
Louise gave up her rights to her husbands estate.(297) They later
had one child, Margaret.
The last twenty years of Carnegies life are particularly in-
triguing. In 1901, with the assistance of Charles Schwab, Carnegie
sold his steel empire to J. P. Morgan for $480 million, and officially
began his retirement. In these years, he actively supported the anti-
imperialist movement and sought to influence Theodore Roosevelts
foreign policy. As Nasaw notes, within three years of retirement,
Carnegie had gone from ruthless steelmaker to peacemaker and ad-
vocate of international arbitration.(657) His philanthropic work was
monumental, and his intention was to give away all of his money
during his lifetimeperhaps one of the few goals he was not able to
fully meet. Establishing libraries was his principal philanthropic mis-
sion. Carnegie provided 1,419 grants totalling $41 million for 1,689
libraries in the continental United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico;
and $15 million more to fund libraries in other countries: 660 in Brit-
ain and Ireland, 125 in Canada, 17 in New Zealand and 12 in South
Africa, among others. He also provided 7,689 organs to churches at a
total cost of $6.25 million. In 1911, he created the Carnegie Corpora-
tion to assist in his philanthropic work.

REVIEWS 89

Andrew Carnegie was many things: a captain of industry,

smart investor, devotee of literature and social science, champion of
world peace, and philanthropist with no equal during his lifetime.
This gregarious and incorrigible extrovert, who also, according to
Mark Twain, noticeably lacked any tendency to self-reflection, was a
remarkable man whose life in many ways provides a map for the his-
tory of his times. In the end, he was an astoundingly successful
immigrant who lived a life that will remain the embodiment of what
is still called the American Dream.


Christopher J. Castaneda
California State University