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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Andrew Carnegie
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(1835–1919) Scottish-born US philanthropist. His father, a weaver in *Dunfermline, emigrated with the family in the *'hungry forties' and settled in Pennsylvania. Starting as a 13-year-old bobbin boy in a cotton factory, Carnegie rose to become the immensely rich master of America's largest empire of steel works. In 1889 he published a famous essay, The Gospel of Wealth, in which he set out the principle that a man should spend the first part of his life accumulating wealth and the second distributing it ('the man who dies rich dies disgraced'). He fulfilled this ideal with astounding generosity. His benefactions in Britain were particularly important in the development of public *libraries, the first of his many gifts in this field being to Dunfermline in 1882.
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