![]() ![]() And I made them the impetus for his change.īLACKLEY: Another one of the voices prevalent throughout the novel is Margaret Carnegie, Andrew’s mother. So what I decided to do was insert into the narrative a composite of my own ancestors-female immigrants who, like Andrew Carnegie, were bright, but uneducated, but very desirous of ascending and almost like a mirror to Andrew Carnegie, if you will. And like them, I looked and looked and could not find this mysterious person. When I dug a little further down my rabbit hole I learned that other historians had asked that question as well, and they had posited that it might be a relationship-that something might have happened during this time period, in the late 1860s, that caused him to change and really refocus his ultimate worldview. So, I really became curious about what would make this young, relatively young man make this startling transformation. ![]() It was actually in December of 1868 he wrote, basically what I would call a manifesto, or a promise, to himself in which he vowed to give away his fortune for the betterment of others, particularly the poor and the lower classes. And what I learned was that he made this transformation not when he was an older man, like you might assume, but when he was a relatively young man-a man in his 30s living in Pittsburgh, a man on the rise, not a man at his peak. And I was always curious about what made him transform from this ‘ruthless’ businessman that we think of today, into philanthropist.Īnd, you know, I'm a historical fiction writer and when I become curious I kind of go down the rabbit hole and I'm looking for stories and, in particular, I'm looking to excavate women's voices from the past, untold women's stories. KATIE BLACKLEY: What made you choose the relationship between Clara as a maid and Andrew as the master?īENEDICT: So growing up, as I mentioned, my family always talked about Andrew Carnegie very lovingly. So the idea of Andrew Carnegie and his philanthropy loomed large over my childhood and I was always really kind of curious about him. So, I didn't have a lot of those negative connotations that people who think of him in the context of the Homestead Strike in those sorts of things. So for me growing up, my grandmother's great aunts always talked about Andrew Carnegie as an instrumental tool in our own family's rise and ascent. My particular family really utilized (they lived in Oakland in a really Irish, kind of, enclave) the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh as one of their stepping stones. And while they were willing to take whatever jobs they could to support their families, they weren't willing to stay at that station of life. And like many of the immigrants during that time period, they took what jobs were available to them-domestics, if you were women in the mills or the mines if you were men. MARIE BENEDICT: My family were Irish immigrants to Pittsburgh in the late 1800s. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Author Marie Benedict, a Pittsburgh native, creates a narrative in which their relationship helps push Carnegie toward philanthropic work throughout his life.īenedict spoke with 90.5 WESA’s Katie Blackley, who asked her how she chose the industrialist to be the backdrop of the story. While serving his mother, Clara develops a rapport with industrialist Andrew Carnegie. ![]() Told primarily from the perspective of the protagonist, Clara Kelley, the story is that of many other young newcomers to the city-she sends money abroad to her family and watches rapidly growing income disparities in booming industrial Pittsburgh. " Carnegie’s Maid" tells the fictional story of an immigrant housekeeper who moves to Pittsburgh and accidentally ends up serving one of the city’s most famous families: the Carnegies.
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