Andrew Carnegie with unidentified man

Andrew Carnegie turned a job as a telegraph messenger into a position with the railroads, where he learned business and investing. He got involved in Pittsburgh’s iron industry and started the Keystone Bridge Company in 1865. Capitalizing on the new Bessemer process that made steel quicker and cheaper to produce, Carnegie and his partners completed their first steel works in Braddock in 1875. Carnegie continued building mills and acquiring businesses connected with the industry. When he sold Carnegie Steel to J. P. Morgan in 1901, creating the United States Steel Corporation, it became the first billion-dollar company and made Carnegie one of the richest men in the world.