Andrew’s father was a weaver of damasks, as had been his father and grandfathers for generations back in the Carnegie history; and the boy was doubtless expected by his parents to carry on the established vocation of the family. But, as so often happens, circumstances unforeseen and impossible to anticipate abruptly changed the whole life-work of a community, and in the change the small boy’s life was directed into a new channel which was destined to bring him the greatest material rewards. The Carnegies wove with hand-looms. Suddenly, invention gave the power-loom to the world. Gone immediately was the demand for the now more costly product of skilled and patient fingers. The swift machines destroyed a trade to build an industry, and in the destruction the Carnegie family was swept into new work and a new environment. With his only means of earning a living destroyed, necessity compelled the elder Carnegie to seek occupation somewhere beyond the limits of the quiet Scotch town. Across the Atlantic a great new republic was just reaching its young manhood. Its fast-sailing clippers had made the Stars and Stripes of its flag known on every sea, and tales of the daring Yankee skippers had brought to complacent England a rude awakening from her peaceful sense of maritime supremacy. Within its boundaries even greater developments were taking form under the firm hands of the Americans. A rich inland empire was disclosing wealth beyond dreams of men: mines of iron and coal and various metals, forests unexplored and seemingly limitless, millions of rich acres unturned by the ploughshare and destined in time to come to feed the world. Already minds of vision were organizing railroads to bring together these riches and to make them accessible to the nation as a whole. All over the world people were turning from war-scarred and time-worn nations oppressed by the rule of kings to this free land of promise. Men and women and little children crossed the broad Atlantic to live happily in a country where men ruled themselves by self-imposed laws, and where education gave to all an equal opportunity. And with these went also the Carnegie family, to add their sturdy strength to the great Republic. [Illustration: Andrew Carnegie (signature)]