Thomas M. Carnegie - Early Life

Early Life

He was born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, on October 2, 1843. His parents were Will and Margaret Carnegie, and he had a brother, Andrew, who was eight years older. A sister, Ann, had been born in 1840 but died in infancy. His father was a master weaver, and his mother sold food in the home and sewed soles on leather boots to help provide income. Left destitute by automation (which threw his father, a hand weaver, out of work), the family emigrated to the United States in 1848 and settled in "Slabtown"—an immigrant neighborhood in Allegheny City, at the time a distinct and fast-growing city on the north side of the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers across from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The family rented rooms from a relative who owned a house at 336 Rebecca Street. (The street is gone, replaced by Three Rivers Stadium football stadium.) Allegheny City was an unpleasant place to live. It had no municipal water system until 1848, no natural gas lines until 1853, and no sewer system, and wild hogs roamed the streets attacking children. There, Thomas attended local public school.

As a boy, Thomas Carnegie was "the beautiful white-haired child with lustrous black eyes, who everywhere attracted attention". He was generally considered well-mannered but reserved, and often went into a quiet room during social gatherings. He was also noted for his quick and wry sense of humor. But while Andrew Carnegie found a father-figure (in Tom Scott, a family friend) after the death of Will Carnegie in 1855, Thomas did not and spent most of his life emulating his brother. And while some, such as Andrew Carnegie biographer Joseph Frazier Wall have concluded that Margaret Carnegie secretly favored Thomas, others such as Richard S. Tedlow disagree and conclude that Thomas was largely isolated and lonely within the extended Carnegie family and their large coterie of friends. It is well documented that Andrew and Thomas did not have the same group of friends, and that Thomas' group was smaller. In time, Thomas Carnegie became a lifelong heavy drinker.