The photographs in this week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane look at aspects of the life of Andrew Carnegie who was born in Dunfermline in 1835.
Sharron McColl, Local Studies Supervisor in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries will be delivering a lecture entitled 'Who was Andrew Carnegie?' in Duloch Library on Thursday, November 9, at 6.30pm.
Having worked in Dunfermline Carnegie Library for the past 30 years, Sharron is ideally qualified to speak about the life of one of the world’s greatest ever philanthropists.
Our first photograph is of the cottage Carnegie was born in, that Carnegie describes in his autobiography: "To begin then, I was born in Dunfermline in the attic of the small one-storey house on the corner of Moodie Street and Priory Lane on the 25th November 1835, and as the saying is, 'of poor but honest parents, of good kith and kin’.
"Dunfermline had long been noted as the centre of the damask trade in Scotland. My father William Carnegie was a damask weaver, the son of Andrew Carnegie after whom I was named.”
Sharron's lecture will range over Carnegie's upbringing in Dunfermline, his emigration to Pittsburgh, marriage to Louise Whitfield, the fallout from the labour dispute in Homestead and the sale of his steel empire to J P Morgan which made him the richest man in the world.
Our next photograph shows Carnegie laying the foundation stone for the Carnegie Baths in Pilmuir Street on July 16, 1902. The building still functions there today as the Carnegie Leisure Centre.
Our final photograph is of Andrew Carnegie's home in New York, located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Andrew Carnegie moved into his newly-completed mansion in late 1902 and lived there until his death in 1919.
The building is now the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The surrounding area, part of the larger Upper East Side neighbourhood, has come to be called Carnegie Hill. Andrew Carnegie's widow Louise continued to live there until her death in 1946.
The eminent Pittsburgh historian Rick Sebak recently uncovered an interesting story surrounding the house. Donald Trump's mother Mary Anne MacLeod emigrated as an 18-year-old woman in May 1930 to New York City from the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
She found a job working as a servant for Louise and according to records may have stayed there as long as four years according to Rick Sebak: "Donald Trump rarely talks about his mother who passed away in August 2000. Her connection to the Carnegie Mansion is noted on the Wikipedia page for Louise Whitfield Carnegie, where it states that Mary Anne MacLeod indicated that she was a maid to Mrs Carnegie on a U.S. Census form. I like the unexpected connection."
Tickets for the Carnegie lecture on Thursday, November 9, at 6.30pm in Duloch Library are on sale online at Onfife, as well as from Duloch Library on 01383 602208 priced £5.
More photographs like these can be seen in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries as well as at Facebook.com/olddunfermline.
With thanks to Frank Connelly
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here