In what year did Andrew Carnegie publish The Gospel of Wealth? Andrew Carnegie published the essay in 1889.
Carnegie first wrote the piece under the shorter title “Wealth.” It appeared in the North American Review in June 1889, where he argued that wealthy people had a moral responsibility to use surplus wealth for the public good rather than leave it simply to heirs.
His argument reflected the industrial age, when fortunes created by steel, railroads, and manufacturing produced both unprecedented wealth and severe inequality. Carnegie presented philanthropy as a form of stewardship: the rich should administer resources in ways that improved society, especially through institutions such as libraries, schools, and universities.
A frequent source of confusion is 1901, the year of a later book edition, The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. The core essay was published twelve years earlier, in 1889, and its original title was “Wealth.”