The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has a little piece on line about the arms assumed by the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Interesting reading:
From http://clpgh.org/locations/pennsylvania/carnegie/accoat.html
Quote:
Andrew Carnegie’s Coat of Arms. The Index, 29 September 1906, 11.
In addition to many other belongings, Mr. Andrew Carnegie is the possessor of a coat of arms. It was not, to be sure, granted to an ancestor for prowess on the field of battle. It has a much more interesting history. Mr. Carnegie had no coat of arms, but, like the man of enterprise and originality that he is, he went to work and devised one, and then he got an artist to paint it high up on the walls of the splendid library in his fine New York mansion.
Upon the escutcheon there is a weaver’s shuttle, because his father, William Carnegie, was a weaver; there is also a shoemaker’s knife, because an ancestor not very remote worked at his trade of shoemaker. They say plainly that he has no desire to ignore his humble beginning and that he wishes to honor the memory of the weaver and the shoemaker, his forebears. Mr. Carnegie has a crown, for a crest, but it is reversed and surmounted by the cap of liberty. The supporters are the American and Scotch flags, and the motto is "Death to Privilege."
http://clpgh.org/locations/pennsylvania/carnegie/images/carnco.gif
Real billionaires don’t need bucket shops!
An upside-down crown with a cap of liberty on top is one of the strongest anti-aristocratic symbols I can imagine. At least he didn’t include a guillotine…