Andrew Carnegie’s decision to help with library construction developed away from their own experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years inside coastal city of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he listened to men read aloud and discuss books borrowed from your Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create. Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but simply had to stop after only three years. The rapid industrialization for the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father away from business. Because of this, family members sold their belongings and immigrated to Allegheny, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Andrew Carnegie’s decision to help with library construction developed away from their own experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years inside coastal city of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he listened to men read aloud and discuss books borrowed from your Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create.view it now Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but simply had to stop after only three years. The rapid industrialization for the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father away from business. Because of this, family members sold their belongings and immigrated to Allegheny, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Although these new circumstances required the young Carnegie to go to work, his learning failed to end. From a year from a textile factory, he was a messenger boy for the local telegraph company. A few of his fellow messengers introduced him to Col. James Anderson of Allegheny, who every Saturday opened his personal library to the young worker who wished to borrow an ebook. Carnegie later said the colonel opened the windows through which the lighting of information streamed. In 1853, after the colonel’s representatives tried to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter into the editor of this Pittsburgh Dispatch defending the right among all working boys to have enjoyment from the pleasures belonging to the library. More important, he resolved that, should he ever be wealthy, he makes similar opportunities available for other poor workers.
Through the next half-century Carnegie accumulated the fortune that might enable him to satisfy that pledge. Throughout his years being a messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the ability of telegraphy. This skill helped him make contacts using the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he traveled to work at age 18. During his 12-year railroad association he rose quickly, ultimately becoming superintendent on the Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh division. He simultaneously invested in numerous other businesses, including railroad locomotives, oil, and iron and steel. In 1865, Carnegie left the railroad to look after the Keystone Bridge Company, that was successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. Via the 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. Even before selling Carnegie Steel he had started to consider how to handle his immense fortune. In 1889 he wrote a famous essay entitled The Gospel of Wealth, of which he stated that wealthy men should live without extravagance, provide moderately with regard to their dependents, and distribute the rest of their riches to profit the welfare and happiness of your common man–when using the consideration that may help just those would you help themselves. The Top Fields for Philanthropy, his second essay, listed seven fields in 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 in gifts that promoted scientific research, the actual spread of information, together with the promotion of world peace. A great number of organizations carry on and this present day: the Carnegie Corporation in Nyc, as an illustration, helps support Sesame Street.
Thanks to his background, Carnegie was particularly focused on public libraries. At some point he stated a library was the best possible gift for any community, simply because it gave people the opportunity to improve themselves. His confidence was based on the results of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, to illustrate, a library given by Enoch Pratt was utilized by 37,000 individuals a year. Carnegie considered that the relatively few public library patrons were of more value to their community rrn comparison to the masses who chose to not benefit from the library.
Carnegie divided his donations to libraries within the retail and wholesale periods. Within the retail period, 1886 to 1896, he gave $1,860,869 for 14 endowed buildings in six communities in the nation. These buildings were actually community centers, containing recreational facilities like pools not to mention libraries. With the years after 1896, named the wholesale period, Carnegie not anymore supported urban multipurpose buildings. Instead he gave $39,172,981 to smaller communities who had limited having access to cultural institutions. His gifts provided 1,406 towns with buildings devoted exclusively to libraries. Over half his grants were for less than $ten thousand. Although most of the towns receiving gifts were from the Midwest, as a whole 46 states taken advantage of Carnegie’s plan.
Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction after a report intended to him by Dr. Alvin Johnson, an economics professor. In 1916 Dr. Johnson visited 100 of your existing Carnegie libraries and studied their social significance, physical aspects, effectiveness, and financial condition. His final report figured that to remain really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings was provided, the good news is it was time to staff all of them with pros who would stimulate active, efficient libraries throughout their communities. Libraries already promised continued to get built until 1923, but after 1919 all financial support was considered library education.
When Andrew Carnegie died in 1919 at age 84, he had given nearly one-fourth of his life to causes during which he believed. His gifts to various charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 % of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as a technique to better people’s lives, and libraries provided among his main tools to assist Americans develop a brighter future. Questions for Reading 1 1. How did progress and industrialization affect Carnegie, both as he was young, and down the road? 2. How much money formal education did Carnegie have? What factors led to his involvement with books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people needs to do utilizing their money? Why did he believe? Would you agree? 4. How did supporting libraries fit with Carnegie’s past with his fantastic 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, Over the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).