Andrew Carnegie, Immigration (American National Biography)

On 17 May 1848 the Carnegies departed from Glasgow on the small sailing vessel Wiscasset. After an arduous ten-week journey, they reached Pittsburgh. They were provided with two rooms rent-free in a house that sister Annie owned on a back alley in Allegheny, across the river from Pittsburgh. One glance at their new home must have convinced even the determined Margaret that she had indeed "spoiled the horn," for here was slum poverty that exceeded anything she had ever seen in Scotland. But there could be no retreat. Her husband must swallow his pride and take a job in a cotton textile factory, and twelve-year-old Andrew must join him as a bobbin-boy in the same factory, earning $1.20 a week.