Carnegie and His Libraries
- Dennis L. Peterson
- 2 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Andrew Carnegie's life is the stereotypical rags-to-riches-by-self-improvement story. He went from his first job as a bobbin boy in a textile mill to a telegraph operator to railroading to steel magnate and proved thereby what could be done by effort and determination.
He became the embodiment of the American dream, demonstrating that, as one biographer noted, "anyone can rise above his origins, however humble, and through hard work, honesty, and thrift achieve positions of power and influence...." (Harold C. Livesay, Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business).
But why write about Carnegie today, on this particular date?
On this day in 1883, the Carnegie Library in Dunfermline, Scotland, opened its doors. Dunfermline was Carnegie's birthplace and hometown. The library he founded there was the first of 2,509 such libraries around the world founded by him. That library was the beginning and the most remembered part of the vast legacy he left behind after he died on August 11, 1919, at the age of 83.
Livesay summarized that entire legacy this way:
"He gave 3,000 libraries, costing $60 million, and used by millions of people a day in 1925. He gave 4,100 church organs. He founded Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hall in New York, Carnegie Institutes in Pittsburgh and Washington. He established Carnegie School of Technology, and finally the Carnegie Foundation with an endowment of $125 million. He became a leader for world peace, and built the Peace Palace at the Hague in the Netherlands. He did all this and more before he died peacefully in his sleep on August 11, 1919. He did not die disgraced; he had given it all away."
Carnegie today is renowned perhaps most for the libraries he helped found. They numbered 1,689 in the United States, 660 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, 125 in Canada, and others in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Belgium, France, Serbia, Mauritius, Malaysia, and throughout the Caribbean.
His first library in America was opened in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1890. It also included the world's first Carnegie Music Hall. The focal point of most of his American libraries was in southwestern Pennsylvania, where his work was centered. In fact, nine of his first thirteen libraries were in that area.
Carnegie was careful not just to give away his money for libraries casually or without close scrutiny of the requester. His donation was not simply a handout. Whenever a community contacted him, seeking his financing of a library, he gave them a "Schedule of Questions," the answers to which determined whether they met his strict preconditions. Those requirements included ...
proof that their community needed such a library;
provision of the site where it would be built;
the stipulation that the community would fund the library's maintenance and operations, including paying its staff;
payment of 10 percent of the construction costs; and
provision of its services free to all.
In an age when racial segregation was the rule, Carnegie funded separate libraries for both races so that everyone could benefit from their use. In fact, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice Clarence Thomas recounted in his book My Grandfather's Son that he had frequented such a library in Savannah, Georgia, when he was just a boy.
The libraries' architecture was relatively simple for the day, but it was highly symbolic. Many of them featured stairs leading from the street level to the entrance, signifying how the individual could be elevated in life by learning and the knowledge to be found in its books. They also usually had a lantern or lamppost near the entrance, symbolizing enlightenment.
Like Carnegie, my early teachers saw the importance of reading to education and progress in life. I'm sure I had been to the tiny Halls Elementary School library before fifth grade, but it didn't become a valued resource for me until fifth grade.
Mrs. George, my fifth-grade teacher, ran a contest in the class. She gave each student a small envelop with his or her name on it and a supply of 3x5 index cards. She took us to the library upstairs, and we checked out several books of our choice. After we had read them, we wrote the titles on the index cards. Whoever read the most books in the specified time won a prize.
I don't know who won the contest. It wasn't me. But I was a winner in that I learned to love reading, especially history and biography. It led to my teaching and writing history as my dual career. And I'm still reading and will continue to do so as long as my eyesight and mental faculties remain capable.
I've never had the privilege of visiting a Carnegie library. but it doesn't matter. I've enjoyed the benefits of libraries--public, university, and museum--and I've amassed quite a private library of my own.
The person who can read but doesn't avail himself of a library is worse off than a person who cannot read.