Andrew Carnegie’s decision to guide library construction developed due to his personal experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years on the coastal city of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he listened to men read aloud and discuss books borrowed on the Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create.check this link right here now Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but wanted to stop after only 3 years. The rapid industrialization for the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father beyond business. Consequently, your family sold their belongings and immigrated to Allegheny, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Although these new circumstances required the young Carnegie to see work, his learning failed to end. After the year within a textile factory, he became a messenger boy in the local telegraph company. A bit of his fellow messengers introduced him to Col. James Anderson of Allegheny, who every Saturday opened his personal library to your young worker who wished to borrow an ebook. Carnegie later said the colonel opened the windows whereby the sunlight of information streamed. In 1853, when the colonel’s representatives aimed to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter with the editor within the Pittsburgh Dispatch defending the proper of the working boys have fun with the pleasures belonging to the library. More vital, he resolved that, should he ever be wealthy, he makes similar opportunities provided to other poor workers.
Over the next half-century Carnegie accumulated the fortune that may enable him to meet that pledge. Throughout his years for a messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the ability of telegraphy. This skill helped him make contacts together with the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he went along to work at age 18. During his 12-year railroad association he rose quickly, ultimately becoming superintendent for the Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh division. He simultaneously invested in a variety of other businesses, including railroad locomotives, oil, and iron and steel. In 1865, Carnegie left the railroad to look after the Keystone Bridge Company, which has been successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. Via the 1870s he was concentrating on steel manufacturing, ultimately creating the Carnegie Steel Company. In 1901 he sold that business for $250 million.
Carnegie then retired and devoted the remainder of his life to philanthropy. Just before selling Carnegie Steel he had started to consider how to deal with his immense fortune. In 1889 he wrote a famous essay entitled The Gospel of Wealth, wherein he stated that wealthy men should live without extravagance, provide moderately with their dependents, and distribute most of their riches to profit the welfare and happiness from the common man–with all the consideration that can help only those who would help themselves. The Top Fields for Philanthropy, his second essay, listed seven fields which the wealthy should donate: universities, libraries, medical centers, public parks, meeting and concert halls, public baths, and churches. He later expanded this list to include gifts that promoted scientific research, the actual spread of knowledge, and then the promotion of world peace. Most of these organizations carry on and this day: the Carnegie Corporation in New York, to illustrate, helps support Sesame Street.
On account of his background, Carnegie was particularly focused on public libraries. At one point he stated a library was the best possible gift for one community, since it gave people the opportunity improve themselves. His confidence was based on the results of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, for example, a library offered by Enoch Pratt had been utilized by 37,000 individuals 12 months. Carnegie considered that the relatively small number of public library patrons were more value to the community than the masses who chose not to ever take advantage of the library.
Carnegie divided his donations to libraries directly into the retail and wholesale periods. Through the entire retail period, 1886 to 1896, he gave $1,860,869 for 14 endowed buildings in six communities in north america. These buildings were actually community centers, containing recreational facilities for example pools not to mention libraries. Within the years after 1896, referred to as the wholesale period, Carnegie never supported urban multipurpose buildings. Instead he gave $39,172,981 to smaller communities that had limited usage of cultural institutions. His gifts provided 1,406 towns with buildings devoted exclusively to libraries. Over half his grants were for under $ten thousand. Although many of the towns receiving gifts were during the Midwest, overall 46 states took advantage of Carnegie’s plan.
Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction right after a report meant to him by Dr. Alvin Johnson, an economics professor. In 1916 Dr. Johnson visited 100 on the existing Carnegie libraries and studied their social significance, physical aspects, effectiveness, and financial condition. His final report figured that to become really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings was basically provided, but now it was time to staff all of them with experts who would stimulate active, efficient libraries in their communities. Libraries already promised continued being built until 1923, but after 1919 all financial support was looked to library education.
When Andrew Carnegie died in 1919 at age 84, he had given nearly one-fourth of his life to causes whereby he believed. His gifts to varied charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 % of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as an approach to strengthen people’s lives, and libraries provided just one of his main tools for helping Americans form a brighter future. Questions for Reading 1 1. How did progress and industrialization affect Carnegie, both when he was young, and in the future? 2. How much money formal education did Carnegie have? What factors led to his interest in books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people should do using their money? Why did he suspect that? Does a person agree? 4. How did supporting libraries match Carnegie’s past along with his beliefs? Reading 1 was compiled from George S. Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries (Chicago: American Library Association, 1969); Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, reprint (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1920 1986); Barry Sears, At the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).