Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. He went to the U.S. in 1848 and soon began work as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, for $1.20 per week. The following year he became a messenger in a Pittsburgh telegraph office and learned telegraphy. He was then employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad as the private secretary and telegrapher to the railroad official Thomas Alexander Scott. Carnegie advanced by successive promotions until he was superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the railroad.…
