what did andrew carnegie do

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist who led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. He was born in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1835 and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1848. Carnegie started working at a young age and eventually became a messenger in a telegraph office, where he caught the notice of Thomas Scott, a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, who made Carnegie his private secretary and personal telegrapher in 1853. Carnegies subsequent rise was rapid, and in 1859 he succeeded Scott as superintendent of the railroads Pittsburgh division. He then turned his attention to founding the Keystone Bridge Company in 1865, where he focused on replacing wooden bridges with stronger iron ones. In three years, he had an annual output of 2,000 iron bridges. Carnegie made his fortune in the steel industry, controlling the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations ever owned by an individual in the United States. He adopted and adapted the Bessemer process, which allowed the high carbon content of pig iron to be burnt away in a controlled and rapid way during steel production. Carnegie also recruited extremely capable subordinates to work for him, including the administrator Henry Clay Frick, the steelmaster and inventor Captain Bill Jones, and his own brother Thomas M. Carnegie. Carnegie was known for making investments in and buying up companies in various industries, including steel, railroads, and coke, which is the material used in the steelmaking process. He was also a philanthropist who gave away vast amounts of his fortune to various causes, including peace missions. Carnegies philanthropic legacy includes the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which has aided colleges and universities and libraries, as well as research and training in law, economics, and medicine.