Louise Whitfield Carnegie (March 7, 1857 – June 24, 1946) was the wife of philanthropist

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in ...

Biography

Early life

Louise Whitfield was born on March 7, 1857 in the Chelsea neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Her parents—John D. Whitfield (died 1878), a prosperous New York City

textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, different #Fabric, fabric types, etc. At f ...

merchant, and Fannie Davis—descended from families who emigrated from England in the 1600s. Reaching relative success, John moved the family from Chelsea to

Gramercy Park Gramercy ParkSometimes misspelled as Grammercy () is the name of both a small, fenced-in private park and the surrounding neighborhood that is referred to also as Gramercy, in the New York City borough of Manhattan in New York, United States. ...

and finally to a

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Type ...

on West 48th Street and

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping ...

Adult life

Margaret Carnegie Miller and Andrew Carnegie

At the age of 23, Whitfield met

, himself aged 45, through her father. On April 22, 1887, Whitfield (now 30) married Carnegie (51) at her family's home in New York City in a private ceremony officiated by a pastor from the

Church of the Divine Paternity The Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York is a congregation within the Unitarian Universalist Association located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It is the last surviving of seven Universalist congregations in the city, found ...

, a Universalist church to which the Whitfields belonged. As wedding gifts from her husband, Louise received a home (formerly owned by

Collis Potter Huntington Collis Potter Huntington (October 22, 1821 – August 13, 1900) was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) who invested i ...

) at 5 West 51st Street and an annual income of approximately $20,000. Louise signed a

prenuptial agreement A prenuptial agreement, antenuptial agreement, or premarital agreement (commonly referred to as a prenup), is a written contract entered into by a couple prior to marriage or a civil union that enables them to select and control many of the leg ...

, renouncing any claims to Andrew’s fortune. In return, Andrew gave her

stocks Stocks are feet restraining devices that were used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The use of stocks is seen as early as Ancient Greece, where they are described as being in use in Solon's law code. The law describing ...

and bonds that amounted to an independent annual income of . Ten years later, in 1897, Louise gave birth to the couple's only child,

Margaret Carnegie Margaret Frances Carnegie (14 March 1910 – 5 August 2002) was an Australian writer, art patron and collector. Biography Margaret Frances Carnegie was born in Melbourne on 14 March 1910, daughter of Henry George Allen and Amelia Burberry. S ...

. Louise and her daughter were members of the Brick Presbyterian Church and later the

(now the

Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York The Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York is a congregation within the Unitarian Universalist Association located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It is the last surviving of seven Universalist congregations in the city, founded ...

) for whom she and her husband funded their organ. Carnegie died at the age of 89 in Manhattan on June 24, 1946. She was buried in

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York, is the final resting place of numerous famous figures, including Washington Irving, whose 1820 short story " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is set in the adjacent burying ground at the Old Dutch ...

, in

Sleepy Hollow, New York Sleepy Hollow is a village in the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York, United States. The village is located on the east bank of the Hudson River, about north of New York City, and is served by the ...

Philanthropy

Louise was an influential member of the board of

The Carnegie Corporation The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establis ...

until her death. She advised Andrew Carnegie as they jointly helped the creation of over 2,500 libraries between 1883 and 1929. After Andrew's death in 1919, Louise continued making charitable contributions to organizations including

American Red Cross The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the des ...

, the

Y.W.C.A. The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries. The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...

, the

Cathedral of St. John the Divine The Cathedral of St. John the Divine (sometimes referred to as St. John's and also nicknamed St. John the Unfinished) is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. It is at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood ...

, numerous

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

relief funds, and $100,000 to the Union Theological Seminary. She spent her summers at

Skibo Castle Skibo Castle (Scottish Gaelic: ''Caisteal Sgìobail'') is located to the west of Dornoch in the Highland county of Sutherland, Scotland overlooking the Dornoch Firth. Although largely of the 19th century and early 20th century, when it was the hom ...

References

Bibliography

*Hendrick, Burton Jesse, and Daniel Henderson. 1950. ''Louise Whitfield Carnegie; The Life of Mrs. Andrew Carnegie''. New York: Hastings House. *Krass, Peter. 2002. ''Carnegie''. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. *Nasaw, David. 2006. ''Andrew Carnegie''. New York: Penguin Press. *"Mr. Carnegie's Wedding" ''The New York Times'', April 23, 1887. *"Mrs. Carnegie Dies; Steel Man's Widow", ''The New York Times'', June 25, 1946. *"Rites in Home for Mrs. Carnegie", ''The New York Times'', June 28, 1946. 1857 births 1946 deaths Philanthropists from New York (state) People from Gramercy Park Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Carnegie family People from Chelsea, Manhattan American people of English descent American Universalists Presbyterians from New York (state) {{Authority control