Andrew Carnegie’s decision to help with library construction developed beyond his own experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years with the coastal town of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he listened to men read aloud and discuss books borrowed via the Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create.a knockout post Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but must stop after only 3 years. The rapid industrialization belonging to the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father through business. As a result, your family sold their belongings and immigrated to Allegheny, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Although these new circumstances required the young Carnegie to travel to work, his learning did not end. After having a year at a textile factory, he became a messenger boy with the local telegraph company. Some 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 where the sunshine of knowledge streamed. In 1853, once the colonel’s representatives aimed to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter to your editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch defending the perfect of all of the working boys have fun in the pleasures from the library. More significant, he resolved that, should he be wealthy, he would make similar opportunities on the market to other poor workers.
Over the next half-century Carnegie accumulated the fortune that might enable him to fulfill that pledge. Throughout his years as an effective messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the art of telegraphy. This skill helped him make contacts because of the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he went along to work on age 18. During his 12-year railroad association he rose quickly, ultimately becoming superintendent belonging to the Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh division. He simultaneously invested in various other businesses, including railroad locomotives, oil, and iron and steel. In 1865, Carnegie left the railroad to manage the Keystone Bridge Company, this was successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. By your 1870s he was focusing 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 begun to consider what to do with his immense fortune. In 1889 he wrote a famous essay entitled The Gospel of Wealth, where by he stated that wealthy men should live without extravagance, provide moderately for his or her dependents, and distribute the rest of their riches to benefit the welfare and happiness within the common man–when using the consideration to assist you to just those would you 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 add gifts that promoted scientific research, the typical spread of information, and the promotion of world peace. Several organizations go on to this very day: the Carnegie Corporation in The Big Apple, such as, helps support Sesame Street.
As a consequence of his background, Carnegie was particularly considering public libraries. At some time he stated a library was the best possible gift for a community, given it gave people the ability to improve themselves. His confidence was using the results of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, for instance, a library distributed by Enoch Pratt appeared to be made use of by 37,000 people 12 month. Carnegie believed the relatively few public library patrons were more value with their community as opposed to masses who chose to never gain benefit from the library.
Carnegie divided his donations to libraries in the retail and wholesale periods. Over the retail period, 1886 to 1896, he gave $1,860,869 for 14 endowed buildings in six communities across the nation. These buildings were actually community centers, containing recreational facilities just like private pools in addition to libraries. While in the years after 1896, called wholesale period, Carnegie do not supported urban multipurpose buildings. Instead he gave $39,172,981 to smaller communities who had limited use of cultural institutions. His gifts provided 1,406 towns with buildings devoted exclusively to libraries. Over half his grants were for under $10,000. Although almost all towns receiving gifts were inside the Midwest, altogether 46 states took advantage of Carnegie’s plan.
Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction right after a report built to him by Dr. Alvin Johnson, an economics professor. In 1916 Dr. Johnson visited 100 of this existing Carnegie libraries and studied their social significance, physical aspects, effectiveness, and financial condition. His final report figured that to end up being really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings were definitely provided, these days it was time to staff all of them with professionals who would stimulate active, efficient libraries in their communities. Libraries already promised continued to end up 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 wherein he believed. His gifts to numerous charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 percent of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as a means to increase people’s lives, and libraries provided certainly one of his main tools for helping Americans produce 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. Simply how much formal education did Carnegie have? What factors contributed to his interest on books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people must do because of their money? Why did he think that? On earth do you agree? 4. How did supporting libraries match Carnegie’s past and his awesome 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, About the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).