Andrew Carnegie’s decision to help with library construction developed out from their own experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years in your coastal town of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he heard men read aloud and discuss books borrowed with the Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create.check it out Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but were required to stop after only 36 months. The rapid industrialization of the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father from business. As a consequence, 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. After the year in a very textile factory, he was a messenger boy for that local telegraph company. A portion 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 a guide. Carnegie later said the colonel opened the windows whereby the sunshine of knowledge streamed. In 1853, when the colonel’s representatives tried to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter on the editor from the Pittsburgh Dispatch defending the suitable of all the working boys to have enjoyment from the pleasures in the 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 is going to enable him to satisfy that pledge. Throughout his years to provide a messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the skill of telegraphy. This skill helped him make contacts while using Pennsylvania Railroad, where he attended work on age 18. Throughout his 12-year railroad association he rose quickly, ultimately becoming superintendent in the Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh division. He simultaneously invested in a lot of other businesses, including railroad locomotives, oil, and iron and steel. In 1865, Carnegie left the railroad to control the Keystone Bridge Company, that has been successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. By your 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. Just before 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, of which he stated that wealthy men should do without extravagance, provide moderately with their dependents, and distribute the rest of their riches to profit the welfare and happiness of your common man–with all the consideration to help solely those would you help themselves. The Best Quality 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 in gifts that promoted scientific research, the general spread of information, and also the promotion of world peace. Many of these organizations will continue to this very day: the Carnegie Corporation in The Big Apple, one example is, helps support Sesame Street.

Owing to his background, Carnegie was particularly keen on public libraries. At some time he stated a library was the ideal gift for a community, since it gave people the opportunity to improve themselves. His confidence was in accordance with the outcomes of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, to provide an example, a library distributed by Enoch Pratt has been applied by 37,000 folks 1 year. Carnegie believed the relatively small number of public library patrons were more value thus to their community versus the masses who chose to not benefit from the library.

Carnegie divided his donations to libraries directly into the retail and wholesale periods. During 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 includes pools along with libraries. Within the years after 1896, referred to as wholesale period, Carnegie not any longer supported urban multipurpose buildings. Instead he gave $39,172,981 to smaller communities which had limited use of cultural institutions. His gifts provided 1,406 towns with buildings devoted exclusively to libraries. Over half his grants were for under $ten thousand. Although most of the towns receiving gifts were from the Midwest, overall 46 states taken advantage of Carnegie’s plan.

Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction after having a report designed to him by Dr. Alvin Johnson, an economics professor. In 1916 Dr. Johnson visited 100 from the existing Carnegie libraries and studied their social significance, physical aspects, effectiveness, and financial condition. His final report concluded that to be really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings ended up being provided, however the time had come to staff all of them experts who would stimulate active, efficient libraries inside their communities. Libraries already promised continued as being built until 1923, but after 1919 all financial support was turned into library education.

When Andrew Carnegie died in 1919 at age 84, he had given nearly one-fourth of his life to causes of which he believed. His gifts to various charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 percent of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as a way to better people’s lives, and libraries provided an example of his main tools to help you Americans form 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. Simply how much formal education did Carnegie have? What factors contributed to his need for books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people should do in relation to their money? Why did he believe? Do you really 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, To the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).