Andrew Carnegie’s decision to help with library construction developed using his experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years from the coastal town of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he heard men read aloud and discuss books borrowed within the Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create.click Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but must stop after only 36 months. The rapid industrialization of your textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father beyond business. Thus, the household sold their belongings and immigrated to Allegheny, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Although these new circumstances required the young Carnegie to travel to work, his learning did not end. After a year in a very textile factory, he was a messenger boy towards the 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 book. Carnegie later said the colonel opened the windows through which the sunshine of information streamed. In 1853, whenever the colonel’s representatives attempted to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter on the editor of this Pittsburgh Dispatch defending an appropriate among all working boys to savor the pleasures within the library. More essential, he resolved that, should he be wealthy, he will make similar opportunities provided to other poor workers.

On the next half-century Carnegie accumulated the fortune that will enable him to fulfill that pledge. Throughout his years to be a messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the art of telegraphy. This skill helped him make contacts while using Pennsylvania Railroad, where he visited work on age 18. During his 12-year railroad association he rose quickly, ultimately becoming superintendent on 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 had been successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. Via the 1870s he was being focused 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, in which he stated that wealthy men should do without extravagance, provide moderately because of their dependents, and distribute the remainder of their riches to benefit the welfare and happiness of the common man–when using the consideration that may help just those would you help themselves. The Best Quality 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 add gifts that promoted scientific research, the overall spread of knowledge, along with the promotion of world peace. A great number of organizations still this present day: the Carnegie Corporation in Ny, such as, helps support Sesame Street.

Due to his background, Carnegie was particularly keen on public libraries. At one point he stated a library was the ideal gift to have a community, simply because it gave people the opportunity to improve themselves. His confidence was with regards to the outcomes of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, such as, a library distributed by Enoch Pratt ended up employed by 37,000 people twelve months. Carnegie thought that the relatively small number of public library patrons were more value to the community as compared to the masses who chose to never gain benefit from the library.

Carnegie divided his donations to libraries directly into the retail and wholesale periods. Over the retail period, 1886 to 1896, he gave $1,860,869 for 14 endowed buildings in six communities in north america. These buildings were actually community centers, containing recreational facilities which include pools as well as libraries. During the years after 1896, referred to as the wholesale period, Carnegie not supported urban multipurpose buildings. Instead he gave $39,172,981 to smaller communities which had limited accessibility to cultural institutions. His gifts provided 1,406 towns with buildings devoted exclusively to libraries. Over half his grants were for less than $ten thousand. Although lots of the towns receiving gifts were while in the Midwest, in total 46 states took advantage of Carnegie’s plan.

Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction carrying out a report built to him by Dr. Alvin Johnson, an economics professor. In 1916 Dr. Johnson visited 100 for the existing Carnegie libraries and studied their social significance, physical aspects, effectiveness, and financial condition. His final report concluded that for being really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings have been provided, however right now the time had come to staff all of them professionals who would stimulate active, efficient libraries inside their communities. Libraries already promised continued for 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 where he believed. His gifts to various charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 % of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as a method to elevate people’s lives, and libraries provided amongst his main tools that will help Americans construct a brighter future. Questions for Reading 1 1. How did progress and industrialization affect Carnegie, both when he was young, and later in life? 2. The amount formal education did Carnegie have? What factors contributed to his fascination with books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people must do making use of their money? Why did he believe that? Does a person 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, Over the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).