Andrew Carnegie’s decision to help with library construction developed from his very own experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years inside the coastal town of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he heard men read aloud and discuss books borrowed via the Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create.www essaycapitals com Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but was required to stop after only three years. The rapid industrialization of this textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father due to business. Therefore, your family sold their belongings and immigrated to Allegheny, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Although these new circumstances required the young Carnegie to venture to work, his learning failed to end. Right after a year from a textile factory, he was a messenger boy to your 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 any young worker who wished to borrow a manuscript. Carnegie later said the colonel opened the windows in which the lighting of knowledge streamed. In 1853, if the colonel’s representatives aimed to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter towards editor of this Pittsburgh Dispatch defending the suitable among all working boys to take pleasure from the pleasures with the library. More important, he resolved that, should he be wealthy, he would make similar opportunities designed to other poor workers.
Covering the next half-century Carnegie accumulated the fortune which would enable him to meet that pledge. During his years as a messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the skill of telegraphy. This skill helped him make contacts when using the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he visited work on age 18. Throughout his 12-year railroad association he rose quickly, ultimately becoming superintendent belonging to the Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh division. He simultaneously invested in many other businesses, including railroad locomotives, oil, and iron and steel. In 1865, Carnegie left the railroad to handle the Keystone Bridge Company, that was successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. Because of the 1870s he was centering 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 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 for dependents, and distribute the rest of their riches to benefit the welfare and happiness from the common man–aided by the consideration to assist you to just those who will help themselves. The Most Beneficial Fields for Philanthropy, his second essay, listed seven fields to 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 feature gifts that promoted scientific research, the overall spread of knowledge, as well as promotion of world peace. A great number of organizations continuously this very day: the Carnegie Corporation in New York, such as, helps support Sesame Street.
Resulting from his background, Carnegie was particularly thinking about public libraries. At one point he stated a library was the very best gift for any community, simply because it gave people the opportunity improve themselves. His confidence was based on the outcomes of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, for instance, a library distributed by Enoch Pratt was basically used by 37,000 people 1 year. Carnegie believed the relatively small number of public library patrons were of more value towards their community compared to the masses who chose to not take pleasure in the library.
Carnegie divided his donations to libraries straight into the retail and wholesale periods. Throughout 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 which include private pools in addition to libraries. Inside years after 1896, named the wholesale period, Carnegie will no longer supported urban multipurpose buildings. Instead he gave $39,172,981 to smaller communities that had limited entry 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 almost all towns receiving gifts were in your Midwest, overall 46 states taken advantage of Carnegie’s plan.
Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction following a report produced to him by Dr. Alvin Johnson, an economics professor. In 1916 Dr. Johnson visited 100 of the existing Carnegie libraries and studied their social significance, physical aspects, effectiveness, and financial condition. His final report figured that being really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings ended up provided, these days it was time to staff them with professionals who would stimulate active, efficient libraries in their communities. Libraries already promised continued to become 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 by which he believed. His gifts to varied charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 percent of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as a way to increase people’s lives, and libraries provided undoubtedly one of his main tools to aid 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. What amount of formal education did Carnegie have? What factors contributed to his affinity for books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people should do using money? Why did he are convinced that? On earth do you 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, Around the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).