Andrew Carnegie is a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and philanthropist who was born on November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, United Kingdom. Carnegie was born to his parents Margaret Morrison Carnegie and William Carnegie in a one-room cottage. He attended the Free School in Dunfermline and helped his mother sell potted meats to support the family. The family decided to move to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in the United States in 1848 to seek out a better life. Both Carnegie and his father received a job at Scottish-owned cotton mill called Anchor Cotton Mills. He was a bobbin boy responsible for changing spools of thread in a cotton mill. Carnegie worked 12 hours a day, six days a week earning just $1.20 a week. In 1849, Carnegie took a job as a telegraph messenger boy in Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company. He would make friends with important men and cultivate relationships with prominent businesses.

Carnegie was given shares in Theodore Tuttle Woodruff's sleeping car company and he slowly began accumulating wealth. In 1864, Carnegie invested $40,000 in Story Farm in Venango County, Pennsylvania. After just one year, Carnegie received over $1,000,000 in cash dividends from the farm. He went on to earn a fortune in the steel industry and began Carnegie Steel. He married Louise Whitfield and had a daughter who he named after his mother. Carnegie died on August 11, 1919, in Lenox, Massachusetts.