Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on November 25, 1835. The son of a weaver, he came with his family to the United States in 1848 and settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. At age thirteen, Carnegie went to work as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill. He then moved rapidly through a succession of jobs with Western Union and the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1865, he resigned to establish his own business enterprises and eventually organized the Carnegie Steel Company, which launched the steel industry in Pittsburgh. At age sixty-five, he sold the company to J. P. Morgan for $400 million and devoted the rest of his life to his philanthropic activities and writing, including his autobiography.
Many persons of wealth have contributed to charity, but Carnegie was perhaps the first to state publicly that the rich have a moral obligation to give away their fortunes. In 1889 he wrote The Gospel of Wealth, in which he asserted that all personal wealth beyond that required to supply the needs of one's family should be regarded as a trust fund to be administered for the benefit of the community.
Carnegie set about disposing of his fortune through innumerable personal gifts and through the establishment of various trusts. In his thirties, Carnegie had already begun to give away some of his fast-accumulating funds. His first large gifts were made to his native town. Later he created seven philanthropic and educational organizations in the United States, including Carnegie Corporation of New York, and several more in Europe.
One of Carnegie's lifelong interests was the establishment of free public libraries to make available to everyone a means of self-education. There were only a few public libraries in the world when, in 1881, Carnegie began to promote his idea. He and the Corporation subsequently spent over $56 million to build 2,509 libraries throughout the English-speaking world.
After termination of this program in 1917, the Corporation continued for about forty years an interest in the improvement of library services. Other major programs in the Corporation's early history included adult education and education in the fine arts.
During his lifetime, Carnegie gave away over $350 million. He died in Lenox, Massachusetts, on August 11, 1919.
-Carnegie Corporation of New York website:
http://www.carnegie.org/sub/about/biography.html
"Lois married a Franklin boy, Raymond Bell, on June 14, 1938. He was a fine musician, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music. He was Supervisor of Music in the Shaler Township Schools, Glenshaw, Pa. for 22 years and was a church organist and choir director. He died of cancer March 5, 1959 at the age of 49. He was a fine, big fellow, 6' 1/2" tall and weighing 180 pounds. He left Lois with two boys.
"The first sign of Raymond's illness became apparent in January 1958 and he underwent an operation in June but nothing could be done; he had cancer of the pancreas. He lingered until the following March. Both boys idolized him.
-WilliamOssian Milton, 1962
"David Crawford Bell, born April 21,1939, graduate of DeVry Technical Institute in Chicago, is now electronics engineer for the Evanston Township High School (4000 students) in Evanston, Illinois. He is now making about three times as much as I ever did as mechanical engineer for the Chicago Pneumatic Tool Co. David teaches a course in electronics in addition to having complete charge of the school's closed-circuit TV system."
-William Ossian Milton, 1962
"Robert Todd Bell, born July 7, 1941, is 6'4" tall and weighs 210 pounds. He is a senior at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. He said he wanted to get that far away from home so he wouldn't be tempted to run home every week-end! He is taking a pre-med course. He has helped finance his education by working in the Macon County Hospital and by teaching biology and anatomy lab courses at the University. Isn't that ambition for you? I do love my two grandsons. The older one gave me my new name. When he was still a baby, Raymond was organist for the Franklin Methodist Church and came up from Glenshaw every week-end with Lois and the baby. His first word was only a lisp which he made with his tongue and sounded like a whispered "Ditn" but Lois noticed that he did that every time I came into the room and so that became my name, "Ditton", to all the family. Of course, Todd always called me that too, but we never allowed anyone outside the family to use the name."
-William Ossian Milton, 1962
"Lois was married again on April 12, 1962 to Charles Edward Moore, three years older than she. He was formerly a welder in a steel mill. Everybody calls him "Red" which I think is a misnomer. His hair is simply a dark auburn. They have a pleasant home in the country about twenty miles north of Pittsburgh. The address is 3940 Bakerstown-Warrendale Rd., Gibsonia, Pa."
-William Ossian Milton, 1962
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