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

Andrew Carnegie’s decision to aid library construction developed using his personal experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years in your coastal town of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he listened to men read aloud and discuss books borrowed in 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 been required to stop after only three years. The rapid industrialization within the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father beyond business. As a consequence, a 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 within a textile factory, he was a messenger boy for that local telegraph company. A few of his fellow messengers introduced him to Col. James Anderson of Allegheny, who every Saturday opened his personal library for any young worker who wished to borrow a novel. Carnegie later said the colonel opened the windows where the lighting of information streamed. In 1853, when the colonel’s representatives attempted to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter towards the editor for the Pittsburgh Dispatch defending an appropriate of the working boys have fun in the pleasures for the library. More essential, he resolved that, should he be wealthy, he makes similar opportunities offered to other poor workers.

Within the next half-century Carnegie accumulated the fortune that could enable him to meet that pledge. Throughout his years as the messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the skill of telegraphy. This skill helped him make contacts with the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he went along to work at age 18. Throughout his 12-year railroad association he rose quickly, ultimately becoming superintendent on 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 look after the Keystone Bridge Company, that has been successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. By 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. Just before selling Carnegie Steel he had begun to consider how to handle his immense fortune. In 1889 he wrote a famous essay entitled The Gospel of Wealth, through which he stated that wealthy men should live without extravagance, provide moderately with regard to dependents, and distribute most of their riches to benefit the welfare and happiness with the common man–aided by the consideration that may help only those would you help themselves. The Top Fields for Philanthropy, his second essay, listed seven fields that 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 general spread of information, together with the promotion of world peace. Some of these organizations carry on and this present day: the Carnegie Corporation in New York City, such as, helps support Sesame Street.

As a result of his background, Carnegie was particularly thinking about public libraries. At some time he stated a library was the perfect gift for any community, given that it gave people the opportunity improve themselves. His confidence was with regards to the results of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, to provide an example, a library provided by Enoch Pratt ended up being utilised by 37,000 folks one full year. Carnegie thought that the relatively few public library patrons were more value with their community rrn comparison to the masses who chose to not gain benefit from the library.

Carnegie divided his donations to libraries straight into 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 which include pools as well as libraries. Inside years after 1896, known as wholesale period, Carnegie never 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 cheaper than $ten thousand. Although almost all of the towns receiving gifts were in the Midwest, altogether 46 states benefited from Carnegie’s plan.

Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction after having a report intended to him by Dr. Alvin Johnson, an economics professor. In 1916 Dr. Johnson visited 100 with the existing Carnegie libraries and studied their social significance, physical aspects, effectiveness, and financial condition. His final report concluded that to end up being really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings ended up being provided, however right now the time had come to staff these with experts who would stimulate active, efficient libraries in their communities. Libraries already promised continued to be 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 that he believed. His gifts to various charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 % of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as a means to boost people’s lives, and libraries provided just one of his main tools for helping Americans set up a brighter future. Questions for Reading 1 1. How did progress and industrialization affect Carnegie, both as he was young, and later on? 2. The amount formal education did Carnegie have? What factors led to his need for books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people needs to do with the money? Why did he reckon that? Will you agree? 4. How did supporting libraries fit with 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, In the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).

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