Andrew Carnegie: Rhetoric Or Hero?

Imagine being the richest person in America & giving away money to people in need. Sounds like a nice thing to do, doesn’t it? This was the case for multi-millionaire, Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie grew up in Dunfermline, Scotland and moved along with his family to the United States in the late 1800s. He worked his way from being a poor Irish immigrant to become one of the most popular and successful industrialists that helped change the US steel industry in the late 1900s. Although Carnegie had extraordinary sums of money, he still wrote notes to himself as to how he would donate his money to the poor and charity. So, the big question here is: Did the charity of Andrew Carnegie make him a legend or not? Well, to begin with, what does it mean to be a philanthropist or to be a hero? A philanthropist is an individual who looks to promote the welfare of others, particularly by the generous donation of money to good causes. To be a hero/legend is to be an individual who

As stated in Carnegie’s book, “Wealth”, Carnegie firmly believed that “The man who dies rich, dies disgraced”. By this, Carnegie means that if you don’t give money to a good cause, you aren’t repaying your debt to society. Carnegie also emphasizes how the rich should “throw”, or in other words, give money to the poor by being a charitable person. Another example of Carnegie;s influence is when he states “(Why should a man) wait until he is dead before he becomes of much good in the world?”. To put simply, Carnegie was a mass influencer/promoter of philanthropy, and he donated all of his money while he was alive because he thought he would make an impact while he was living to do “much good in the world”. This goes to show that Carnegie is a hero because of his big heart and wanting to spread philanthropy to other wealthy people in the