About Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie is remembered for two achievements: making enormous amounts of money as one of America's most successful industrialists, and then giving most of that money away.

Carnegie immigrated to Pittsburgh with his family from Scotland when he was 12 years old. From his first job in the U.S. at age 13, earning $1.20 a week as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory, Andrew Carnegie practiced what he later preached: "Concentration is my motto — first honesty, then industry, then concentration."

By the time he was 24 years old, he was earning $1,500 a year — in today's dollars, more than $200,000. But that was just his salary — he was earning an equal amount from his investments.

His first "big" investment was with George Pullman's company, which made the first railroad sleeping cars. From those dividends, he bought oil-producing property. Then, in the 1870s, when almost all the steel used in this country came from Great Britain, Carnegie began to build his steel empire.

By 1881, the steel manufacturing plant he had built in Braddock, Pennsylvania, was producing twice as much as Great Britain's largest steel company. Steel made him wealthy almost beyond belief. In 1901, he sold what was then the Carnegie Steel Company to J.P. Morgan for $480 million — $10.6 billion in today's dollars.

From his earliest years, Andrew Carnegie knew that the world of business was not the only world that existed.

When he was just 33 years old, he wrote a memo to himself about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

One of the first things on his list was, "Settle in Oxford and get a thorough education." That is not surprising, because Andrew Carnegie had only five years of formal schooling.

He also decided that he would retire in two years , when he was 35. "To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares ... must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery," he wrote. Twenty years later, he still had not retired. But he had written an essay that he subsequently turned into a book, The Gospel of Wealth. Here he outlined his ideas about what he called "the problem of our age — the proper administration of wealth." In this book, Carnegie laid down the principles of what he called "the business of benevolence" — and introduced philanthropy as we know it today.

First, he rejected the practice of leaving vast sums of money to one's heirs. He thought children should be provided for, of course, but he also believed that giving a child a fortune would do much more harm than good.

Second, he rejected what he called "almsgiving" —handing out money just to make the giver feel better.

As far as Carnegie was concerned, handouts didn't work. No one gained anything from them, except sloth, a word not in his lexicon.

Instead, he believed the poor should be supported by education and training. In this way, they could take advantage of the same opportunities America had given him. Third, Carnegie felt it was the duty of the person who gave the money to ensure that it was used wisely.

To Andrew Carnegie, giving away one's accumulated wealth for the common good was just as important a task as building up that wealth in the first place. It had to be done right, and it had to be done personally.

If someone failed at this task, Carnegie was blunt about the results: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Finally, when he was 65, Andrew Carnegie sold his steel company to J.P. Morgan. As he was leaving, he is supposed to have said, "Now, Pierpont, I'm the happiest man in the world. I have unloaded this burden on your back, and I'm off to Europe to play."

But of course Andrew Carnegie did not really retire — he just changed careers. After spending most of his life amassing a fortune, it was time to give it away. Using the principles he'd outlined in The Gospel of Wealth, which he called scientific philanthropy, he put his system into action. For the next 18 years, until he died in 1919, Carnegie proceeded to give away $350 million. By the time of his death, he had created 22 different Carnegie institutions and trusts all united under a single purpose: to benefit humankind.

The Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy

As the centennial of Carnegie's career in philanthropy neared, all 22 Carnegie organizations came together to "acknowledge, honor and celebrate the life of their founder." Interestingly, this was the first time all had met under a single roof.

At that meeting, the group inaugurated the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy — as a centennial celebration of their founder's philanthropic career. It could not have been a more fitting memorial.

The Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy is awarded every other year to individuals who share Andrew Carnegie's belief that private wealth should benefit humankind. Three criteria are used to select the recipients:

• The recipient must share Andrew Carnegie's vision of philanthropy.
• His or her philanthropic work must reflect a range and depth of philanthropic endeavors and demonstrate a sustained record of accomplishment.
• The impact of his or her philanthropy on a field, a nation, or on the international community must be both strong and continuous.

Members of the 22 institutions nominate the award recipients. There are four permanent members of the selection committee: the Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington—the host for the 2003 ceremony. The other organizations rotate service on the selection committee.

Each recipient receives a bust of Andrew Carnegie—an original work of art cast in bronze and created specially for the award—and a bronze medal.

Past recipients of the medal

In 2001 the Carnegie group of institutions awarded seven inaugural medals to individuals and families. They were:

Ambassadors Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, who jointly head the Annenberg Foundation, were selected for the historic role their foundation has played in helping America's schools meet the challenges of the 21st century and for their personal commitment to strengthening education and the arts. Among their many gifts is the $500 million Annenberg Challenge Grant, the largest single gift ever bestowed on public education in the United States.

Brooke Astor has been a major force behind the revitalization of the New York Public Library as president of the Vincent Astor Foundation. She was chosen for her unstinting efforts on behalf of New York City's great cultural and education institutions during 40 years of inspired philanthropy.

Irene Diamond was selected for her trailblazing gifts to combat AIDS and to educate the public about the disease. She served as president of the Aaron Diamond Foundation, which distributed all of its assets and became the nation's largest private supporter of AIDS research.

The Gates family, William H. Gates III, Melinda French Gates, and William H. Gates Sr. are setting new standards of giving for the 21st century as heads of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates were selected for their leadership in reaffirming an ethic of responsibility to the world at large and for their landmark efforts to promote health equity around the globe, to help all students achieve and to bridge the digital divide.

George Soros was chosen for his leadership and vision in fostering open societies and a better life for billions of citizens of the world. His global network of foundations and Open Society Institutes spend nearly a half-billion dollars each year to support projects in education, public health, civil society development and other areas.

Ted Turner was selected for his leadership in the philanthropic arena, particularly with his historic $1 billion gift to the United Nations, for his passionate stewardship of the environment and for the Nuclear Threat Initiative to reduce the global threat posed by nuclear and biological weapons.

The Rockefeller family was recognized for its exceptional record of philanthropy over the last century. Third and fourth generations of the family now continue to build on philanthropic roots established by John D. Rockefeller, who, along with Andrew Carnegie, set standards of giving for all who followed.