A Carnegie library is a library built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. A total of 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929, including some belonging to public and university library systems. Most of them – 1,689 – were built in the United States, with 660 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, 125 in Canada, and 25 others in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Serbia, Belgium, France, the Caribbean, Mauritius, Malaysia, and Fiji.
At first, Carnegie libraries were almost exclusively in places with which he had a personal connection: his birthplace in Scotland and the area around his adopted hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1899, Carnegie began to fund to libraries outside these areas. Ultimately, very few of the towns that requested a grant, committing to his terms for operation and maintenance, were refused. By the time the last grant was made, he had funded the construction of nearly half of the 3,500 libraries in the United States.
History
Carnegie started erecting libraries in places with which he had personal associations. The first of Carnegie's public libraries, Dunfermline Carnegie Library, was in his birthplace, Dunfermline, Scotland. It was first commissioned or granted by Carnegie in 1880 to James Campbell Walker and would open in 1883.
The first library in the United States to be commissioned by Carnegie was in 1886 in his adopted home town of Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now the North Side of Pittsburgh). In 1890, it became the second of his libraries to open in the US. The building also contained the first Carnegie Music Hall in the world.
The first Carnegie library to open in the United States was in Braddock, Pennsylvania, about 9 miles up the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh. In 1889, it was also the site of one of the Carnegie Steel Company's mills. It was the second Carnegie Library in the United States to be commissioned, in 1887, and was the first of the four libraries which he fully endowed. An 1893 addition doubled the size of the building and included the third Carnegie Music Hall in the United States.
Nine of the first 13 U.S. libraries that Carnegie commissioned are in southwestern Pennsylvania. The Braddock, Homestead, and Duquesne libraries were owned not by municipalities, but by Carnegie Steel, which built them, maintained them, and delivered coal for their heating systems.
In 1897, Carnegie hired James Bertram as his personal assistant. Bertram was responsible for fielding requests from municipalities for funds and overseeing the dispensing of grants for libraries. When Bertram received a letter requesting a library, he sent the applicant a questionnaire inquiring about the town's population, whether it had any other libraries, how large its book collection was, and what its circulation figures were. If initial requirements were met, Bertram asked the amount the town was willing to pledge for the library's annual maintenance, whether a site was being provided, and the amount of money already available.
Until 1898, only one library was commissioned in the United States outside Southwestern Pennsylvania: a library in Fairfield, Iowa, commissioned in 1892. It was the first project in which Carnegie had funded a library to which he had no personal ties. The Fairfield project was part of a new funding model to be used by Carnegie (through Bertram) for thousands of additional libraries.
Beginning in 1899, Carnegie's foundation funded a dramatic increase in the number of libraries. This coincided with the rise of women's clubs in the post-Civil War period. They primarily took the lead in organizing local efforts to establish libraries, including long-term fundraising and lobbying within their communities to support operations and collections. They led the establishment of 75–80 percent of the libraries in communities across the country.Teva Scheer, "The "Praxis" Side of the Equation: Club Women and American Public Administration", Administrative Theory & Praxis, Vol. 24, Issue 3, 2002, p. 525
Carnegie believed in giving to the "industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve and will be benefited by help from others."Andrew Carnegie, "The Best Fields for Philanthropy" , The North American Review, Volume 149, Issue 397, December 1889 from the Cornell University Library website Under segregation, Black people were generally denied access to public libraries in the Southern United States. Rather than insisting on his libraries being racially integrated, Carnegie funded separate libraries for African Americans in the South. For example, in Houston he funded a separate Colored Carnegie Library.This library has been discussed in Cheryl Knott Malone's essay, "Houston's Colored Carnegie Library, 1907–1922." While still in manuscript, it was awarded the Justin Winsor Prize in 1997. Accessed on-line August 2008 in a revised version The Carnegie Library in Savannah, Georgia, opened in 1914 to serve Black residents, who had been excluded from the segregated White public library. The privately organized Colored Library Association of Savannah had raised money and collected books to establish a small Library for Colored Citizens. Having demonstrated their willingness to support a library, the group petitioned for and received funds from Carnegie. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his 2008 memoirs that he frequently used that library as a boy, before the public library system was desegregated.Clarence Thomas, My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir, HarperCollins, 2008, pp. 17, 29, 30, Google Books
The library buildings were constructed in a number of styles, including Beaux-Arts, Italian Renaissance, Baroque, Classical Revival, and Spanish Colonial, to enhance their appearance as public buildings. Scottish Baronial was one of the styles used for libraries in Carnegie's native Scotland. Each style was chosen by the community. As the years went by James Bertram, Carnegie's secretary, became less tolerant of approving designs that were not to his taste. Edward Lippincott Tilton, a friend often recommended by Bertram, designed many of the buildings.
The architecture was typically simple and formal, welcoming patrons through a prominent doorway, nearly always accessed via a staircase from the ground level. The entry staircase symbolized a person's elevation by learning. Similarly, most libraries had a lamp post or lantern installed near the entrance, meant as a symbol of enlightenment.
Carnegie's grants were very large for the era, and his library philanthropy was one of the most costly philanthropic activities, by value, in history. Carnegie continued funding new libraries until shortly before his death in 1919. Libraries were given to towns and cities in Great Britain and much of the English-speaking world: Almost $56.2 million went for construction of 2,509 libraries worldwide. Of that, $40 million was given for construction of 1,670 public library buildings in 1,412 American communities. Small towns received grants of $10,000 that enabled them to build large libraries that immediately were among the most significant town amenities in hundreds of communities.
Background
Books and libraries were important to Carnegie, from his early childhood in Scotland and his teen years in Allegheny and Pittsburgh. There he listened to readings and discussions of books from the Tradesman's Subscription Library, which his father had helped create. Later in Pennsylvania, while working for the local telegraph company in Pittsburgh, Carnegie borrowed books from the personal library of Colonel James Anderson (1785-1861).Koch, Theodore Wesley (1907) A Portfolio of Carnegie Libraries, preface (work is unpaginated) He opened his collection to his workers every Saturday. Anderson, like Carnegie, resided in Allegheny.
In his autobiography, Carnegie credited Anderson with providing an opportunity for "working boys" (that some people said should not be "entitled to books") to acquire the knowledge to improve themselves."Andrew Carnegie: A Tribute: Colonel James Anderson" , Exhibit, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Carnegie's personal experience as an immigrant, who with help from others worked his way and became wealthy, reinforced his belief in a society based on merit, where anyone who worked hard could become successful. This conviction was a major element of his philosophy of giving in general. His libraries were the best-known expression of this philanthropic goal. In 1900, Carnegie granted funds to build the Anderson Memorial Library, in memory of Colonel John Byers Anderson, at the College of Emporia.
Carnegie formula
Nearly all of Carnegie's libraries were built according to "the Carnegie formula", which required financial commitments for maintenance and operation from the town that received the donation. Carnegie required public support rather than making endowments because, as he wrote:
Carnegie required the elected officials—the local government—to: demonstrate the need for a public library; provide the building site; pay staff and maintain the library; draw from public funds to run the library—not use only private donations; annually provide ten percent of the cost of the library's construction to support its operation; and, provide free service to all.
Carnegie assigned the decisions to his assistant James Bertram. He created a "Schedule of Questions". The schedule included: Name, status and population of town, Does it have a library? Where is it located and is it public or private? How many books? Is a town-owned site available? Estimation of the community's population at this stage was done by local officials, and Bertram later commented that if the population counts he received were accurate, "the nation's population had mysteriously doubled".
The effects of Carnegie's library philanthropy coincided with a peak in new town development and library expansion in the US. By 1890, many states had begun to take an active role in organizing public libraries, and the new buildings filled a tremendous need. It was also a time of rapid development of institutions of higher learning. Interest in libraries was also heightened at a crucial time in their early development by Carnegie's high profile and his genuine belief in their importance.Bobinski, p. 191.
In Canada in 1901, Carnegie offered more than $2.5 million to build 125 libraries. Most cities at first turned him down, then eventually took the money.Susan Goldenberg, "Dubious Donations," Beaver (2008) 88#2
In 1902, Carnegie offered funds to build a library in Dunedin in New Zealand. Between 1908 and 1916, 18 Carnegie libraries were opened across New Zealand.
Design The Lawrenceville Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh signaled a break from the Richardsonian style of libraries which was popularized in the mid 1800s. The ALA discouraged Richardsonian characteristics such as alcoved book halls with high shelves requiring a ladder, as well as sheltered galleries and niches, reminiscent of sixteenth-century Europe, largely because modern librarians could not supervise such spaces efficiently.
Bertram's architectural criteria included a lecture room, reading rooms for adults and children, a staff room, a centrally located librarian's desk, twelve-to-fifteen-foot ceilings, and large windows six to seven feet above the floor. No architectural style was recommended for the exterior, nor was it necessary to put Andrew Carnegie's name on the building. In the interests of efficiency, fireplaces were discouraged, since that wall space could be used to house more books.
There were no strict requirements about furniture, but most of it came from the Library Bureau, established by Melvil Dewey in 1888. It sold standardized chairs, tables, catalogs, and bookshelves.
Self-service stacks