Carnegie

Andrew, an American manufacturer and philanthropist, born in Dun ferm line, Scotland, Noy. 25, 1835, The elder Carnegie was a master weaver of Dun ferm line, Scotland. But the newly invented steam machinery drove him and his four hand looms out of busine , and in 1848 he and_his wife with their two boys decided to follow some relatives acro the ocean to America. Here Andrew began work in a steam cotton factory, tending bobbins. In le than a year he had been taken from the factory by one who had noticed the boy, and, in the new works, he learned how to run the engine and was promoted to this work, his salary of 20 cents a day not being increased, until he did clerical work for his employer as well—for he had some knowledge of arithmetic and wrote a good hand. He next became a me enger boy in the Ohio Telegraph Company, shortly after which his father died, and at the age of 14 he became the sole support of his mother and younger brother. But the weight on his shoulders was merely a spur to his ambition. He had not been in the office a month when he began to learn telegraphy, and a little friendly instruction soon had him spending all his spare minutes at the key. haracteristically, he was not content with the general custom of receiving by the tape, but doggedly mastered the clicking tongue of the instrument, until the supposed insecurity of taking me ages by sound was found not to apply to him. He became an operator presently at a salary which seemed to him princely, though he augmented even this $25 a month by copying telegraphic news for the daily papers. When the Pennsylvania railroad needed an operator he was chosen to fill the vacancy. A little later Colonel Scott selected him for his secretary; and before long, when Colonel Scott advanced to the vice-presidency of the road, the young man found himself superintendent of the Pennsylvania’s Western Division. » One day as the young superintendent was examining the line from a rear car, a tall, thin man stepped up to him, introduced himself as T. T. Woodruff, an inventor, and asked if he might show him an idea he had for a car to accommodate pa engers at night.