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Andrew Carnegie would continue his rise up the industrial ladder, and by the late 1880s, he had gained quite a monopoly over steel and pig iron. It is said that by the year 1889, U.S. production of steel surpassed all of England’s production, and within that assortment it was Andrew Carnegie who owned more than his fair share.

Along with these advances in business Carnegie also began to implement what he came to call his “Gospel of Wealth” in which he donated his time and money seeing to the cultural enrichment of the community. This was the case in November of 1895 when he took a train back to Pittsburgh to kick off his 60th birthday by opening one of his famed Carnegie libraries. The library was officially dedicated on November 5 in the Music Hall of the building. Following a speech given by a local Episcopalian priest, Carnegie spoke to the excited crowd of onlookers.

He explained to those in attendance how he planned to give back much of the wealth he had gained. He told them that “surplus wealth must sometimes flow into the hands of the few,” in what he termed to be a “sacred trust, to be administered during life by its possessor for the best good of my fellow men.” And Andrew Carnegie did not disappoint, donating millions of dollars to the building of libraries, museums, and technical institutions. All of these efforts served to leave an indelible legacy for Mr. Carnegie, not only in the city of Pittsburgh but the rest of the world for years to come.

Carnegie meanwhile had accumulated more wealth in his personal life when his wife Louise gave birth to Margaret, a daughter named after Andrew’s mother, on March 30, 1897. With his family life set and his businesses generating more money than he could spend, by 1901, Carnegie was so rich and successful that he considered retiring. With this idea in mind, he had placed much of his assets into a joint stock package.

Helping him to organize his retirement savings was none other than John Pierpont Morgan, the famed banker and financial wizard of the era. Morgan knew that Andrew Carnegie himself was a shrewd and successful businessman, so he was determined to cut him the retirement deal of a lifetime. Morgan believed that the best way to go about doing so was to purchase Carnegie’s holdings as well as the holdings of others and consolidate them all under one massive company in order to streamline the process.

It was these efforts that produced the United States Steel Corporation on March 2, 1901. Right at the dawn of the twentieth century, U.S. Steel would become the richest corporation in the world, exceeding the billion-dollar mark. And at this point, Carnegie was one of the wealthiest people in the world, a fact that motivated him to move toward another stage in his life—one of philanthropy. This included the establishment of libraries and generous donations to charitable organizations all over the world. Carnegie also began to engage in peace talks on a global scale, attempting to avert war and conflict at any cost. It is said that Carnegie would give an estimated 21 million in the year 1903 alone. Carnegie was also a member of the Anti-Imperialism League, a group of activists determined to stem the tide of imperial ambition abroad.

But along with all of this activism and charitable ambition, 1903 was also a year of personal tragedy when Carnegie’s friend and mentor Herbert Spencer passed away. Spencer was part railway engineer, part philosopher, and Andrew Carnegie loved everything the man said. Often referring to him in letters as “master,” Carnegie truly saw the man as a sage of great wisdom, sparing him no great question. In December 1903 when while Spencer was on his deathbed, Carnegie is said to have asked him one of the biggest questions of all, inquiring of him, “Why must we die?” Spencer, the master philosopher, sadly did not have the answers that Carnegie was looking for and passed away on December 8, unable to render a successful treatise on the subject.

As he became increasingly aware of his own mortality, Carnegie would come to ask this same question more and more. But even though he was pondering his future demise, in the early 1900s the old man was still just as robust in his sixties as he was in his forties. And the spring and summer of 1904 would come and go like any other, with the elder Carnegie living it up at his vacation home in Scotland with his wife and daughter in tow. Here Carnegie would wake up to bagpipes and breakfast, as he attempted to keep his mind on anything but the steady march of time.