Andrew Carnegie’s decision to help library construction developed out from his experience. Born in 1835, he spent his first 12 years inside coastal city of Dunfermline, Scotland. There he listened to men read aloud and discuss books borrowed from your Tradesmen’s Subscription Library that his father, a weaver, had helped create.essaycapitals.com Carnegie began his formal education at age eight, but needed to stop after only three years. The rapid industrialization belonging to the textile trade forced small businessmen like Carnegie’s father from business. Subsequently, the 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 did not end. After having a year in any textile factory, he was a messenger boy for that local telegraph company. A part 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 through which the light of knowledge streamed. In 1853, as soon as the colonel’s representatives attempted to restrict the library’s use, Carnegie wrote a letter on the editor in the Pittsburgh Dispatch defending the appropriate of working boys have fun with the pleasures of the library. More important, he resolved that, should he be wealthy, he will make similar opportunities suitable to other poor workers.

During the next half-century Carnegie accumulated the fortune that is going to enable him to fulfill that pledge. Throughout his years being a messenger, Carnegie had taught himself the art of telegraphy. This skill helped him make contacts when using the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he traveled to just work at age 18. During his 12-year railroad association he rose quickly, ultimately becoming superintendent belonging to the Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh division. He simultaneously invested in numerous other businesses, including railroad locomotives, oil, and iron and steel. In 1865, Carnegie left the railroad to take care of the Keystone Bridge Company, that had been successfully replacing wooden railroad bridges with iron ones. Via the 1870s he was paying attention to 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. Prior to 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, whereby he stated that wealthy men should do without extravagance, provide moderately with regards to dependents, and distribute the remainder of their riches to profit the welfare and happiness from the common man–along with the consideration to assist you to just those would you help themselves. The Very Best Fields for Philanthropy, his second essay, listed seven fields in 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 incorporate gifts that promoted scientific research, the normal spread of knowledge, and also the promotion of world peace. Some of these organizations will continue to this present day: the Carnegie Corporation in The Big Apple, by way of example, helps support Sesame Street.

Due to his background, Carnegie was particularly serious about public libraries. At some time he stated a library was the best possible gift for the community, since it gave people the opportunity to improve themselves. His confidence was according to the outcomes of similar gifts from earlier philanthropists. In Baltimore, to provide an example, a library offered by Enoch Pratt were employed by 37,000 people 12 month. Carnegie considered that the relatively few public library patrons were more value for their community compared to the masses who chose not to benefit from the library.

Carnegie divided his donations to libraries within the retail and wholesale periods. While in 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 for instance pools along with libraries. In your years after 1896, referred to as wholesale period, Carnegie no longer supported urban multipurpose buildings. Instead he gave $39,172,981 to smaller communities who had limited access to cultural institutions. His gifts provided 1,406 towns with buildings devoted exclusively to libraries. Over half his grants were for under $10,000. Although many of the towns receiving gifts were in the Midwest, as a whole 46 states took advantage of Carnegie’s plan.

Andrew Carnegie stopped making gifts for library construction which was. In 1916 Dr. Johnson visited 100 of this existing Carnegie libraries and studied their social significance, physical aspects, effectiveness, and financial condition. His final report determined that to be really effective, the libraries needed trained personnel. Buildings ended up provided, the good news is the time had come to staff them pros who would stimulate active, efficient libraries in their own communities. Libraries already promised continued to always be 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 that he believed. His gifts to numerous charities totalled nearly $350 million, almost 90 % of his fortune. Carnegie regarded all education as a method to better people’s lives, and libraries provided undoubtedly one of his main tools that will help Americans generate a brighter future. Questions for Reading 1 1. How did progress and industrialization affect Carnegie, both as he was young, and later in life? 2. The amount of formal education did Carnegie have? What factors led to his interest in books and reading? 3. What did Carnegie believe wealthy people ought to do with the money? Why did he suspect that? Would you agree? 4. How did supporting libraries fit with 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, Around the Trail of Carnegie Libraries, Antiques and Collecting (February 1994); Gerald R. Shields, Recycling Buildings for Libraries, Public Libraries (March/April 1994).