25 Sep Andrew Carnegie’s decision to hold library construction developed using his personal experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years in the coastal town of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he heard men read aloud and discuss books borrowed on the Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create. Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but were forced to stop after only 3 years. The rapid industrialization from the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father outside of business. Consequently, your family sold their belongings and immigrated to Allegheny, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Andrew Carnegie’s decision to hold library construction developed using his personal experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years in the coastal town of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he heard men read aloud and discuss books borrowed on the Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create.sites Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but were forced to stop after only 3 years. The rapid industrialization from the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father outside of 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 go to work, his learning did not end. Following a year in a textile factory, he became a messenger boy for any local telegraph company. A handful 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 a manuscript. Carnegie later said the colonel opened the windows where light of knowledge streamed. In 1853, if your colonel’s representatives aimed to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter with the editor for the Pittsburgh Dispatch defending an appropriate of all working boys have fun with the pleasures of this library. More significant, he resolved that, should he be wealthy, he will make similar opportunities on the market to other poor workers.

Covering the next half-century Carnegie accumulated the fortune that may enable him to meet that pledge. During his years like a messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the skill 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 with 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, that was successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. From 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. Prior to selling Carnegie Steel he had begun to consider how to deal with his immense fortune. In 1889 he wrote a famous essay entitled The Gospel of Wealth, where by he stated that wealthy men should do without extravagance, provide moderately because of their dependents, and distribute the remainder of their riches to help the welfare and happiness for the common man–when using the consideration to assist only those who will help themselves. The Most Beneficial 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 actual spread of knowledge, as well as promotion of world peace. A number of these organizations always this present day: the Carnegie Corporation in The Big Apple, to provide an example, helps support Sesame Street.

Due to his background, Carnegie was particularly focused on public libraries. At some point he stated a library was the ideal gift for any community, because it gave people the capability to improve themselves. His confidence was in accordance with the results of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, as an illustration, a library offered by Enoch Pratt had been utilized by 37,000 individuals 1 year. Carnegie believed the relatively small number of public library patrons were of more value thus to their community as opposed to the masses who chose to never benefit from the library.

Carnegie divided his donations to libraries in the retail and wholesale periods. In the retail period, 1886 to 1896, he gave $1,860,869 for 14 endowed buildings in six communities in the country. These buildings were actually community centers, containing recreational facilities that include private pools plus libraries. While in the years after 1896, termed as a wholesale period, Carnegie not anymore supported urban multipurpose buildings. Instead he gave $39,172,981 to smaller communities which had limited admission to cultural institutions. His gifts provided 1,406 towns with buildings devoted exclusively to libraries. Over half his grants were for under $ten thousand. Although much of the towns receiving gifts were on the Midwest, in total 46 states taken advantage of Carnegie’s plan.

Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction using a report manufactured 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 generally be really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings was provided, these days the time had come to staff all of them experts who would stimulate active, efficient libraries in their communities. Libraries already promised continued as being 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 that he believed. His gifts to various charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 % of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as a technique to increase people’s lives, and libraries provided among his main tools to support Americans form a brighter future. Questions for Reading 1 1. How did progress and industrialization affect Carnegie, both when he was young, and later in life? 2. Simply how much formal education did Carnegie have? What factors contributed to his affinity for books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people must do using money? Why did he imagine that? Would you agree? 4. How did supporting libraries match Carnegie’s past and the 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, Within the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).