Andrew Carnegie’s decision to support library construction developed using his experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years in your coastal city of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he heard men read aloud and discuss books borrowed from your Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create.have a peek at this site Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but simply had to stop after only three years. The rapid industrialization within the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father using business. Thus, a family sold their belongings and immigrated to Allegheny, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Although these new circumstances required the young Carnegie pay a visit to work, his learning failed to end. Right after a year with a textile factory, he became a messenger boy for your 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 magazine. Carnegie later said the colonel opened the windows by which the light of information streamed. In 1853, if the colonel’s representatives aimed to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter to the editor of your Pittsburgh Dispatch defending the ideal among all working boys to take pleasure from the pleasures in the library. More valuable, he resolved that, should he be wealthy, he would make similar opportunities suitable to other poor workers.

Within the next half-century Carnegie accumulated the fortune that might enable him to satisfy that pledge. Throughout his years for a messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the skill of telegraphy. This skill helped him make contacts with all the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he visited 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 various other businesses, including railroad locomotives, oil, and iron and steel. In 1865, Carnegie left the railroad to look after the Keystone Bridge Company, which had been successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. From 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. 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, in which he stated that wealthy men should do without extravagance, provide moderately because of their dependents, and distribute most of their riches to profit the welfare and happiness of this common man–together with the consideration to support just those who will help themselves. The Right 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 include gifts that promoted scientific research, the overall spread of information, as well as the promotion of world peace. Most of these organizations consistently this very day: the Carnegie Corporation in Ny, as an example, helps support Sesame Street.

Caused by his background, Carnegie was particularly considering public libraries. At one point he stated a library was the perfect gift for any community, because it gave people the opportunity improve themselves. His confidence was depending upon the outcomes of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, as an illustration, a library given by Enoch Pratt has been employed by 37,000 people in a year. Carnegie thought that the relatively small number of public library patrons were of more value with their community as compared to the masses who chose not to benefit from the library.

Carnegie divided his donations to libraries straight 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 the us. These buildings were actually community centers, containing recreational facilities for instance swimming pools together with libraries. During the years after 1896, named the wholesale period, Carnegie no more supported urban multipurpose buildings. Instead he gave $39,172,981 to smaller communities which had limited usage of cultural institutions. His gifts provided 1,406 towns with buildings devoted exclusively to libraries. Over half his grants were cheaper than $ten thousand. Although much of the towns receiving gifts were inside the Midwest, altogether 46 states took advantage of Carnegie’s plan.

Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction after a report created 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 to generally be really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings have been provided, but this time the time had come to staff these with experts who would stimulate active, efficient libraries in their own 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 whereby he believed. His gifts to various charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 % of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as a way to enhance people’s lives, and libraries provided an example of his main tools for helping Americans construct 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 contributed to his interest in books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people ought to do with regards to their money? Why did he believe that? Should you agree? 4. How did supporting libraries match Carnegie’s past and 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, In the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).