TIL Andrew Carnegie believed that public libraries were the key to self-improvement for ordinary folk. In the years between 1886 & 1917, Carnegie financed the construction of 2811 public libraries. Ironically this is the same reason rich people are now trying to defund libraries. Knowledge is power
There's a Carnegie library near me that is the coolest architecture in the neighborhood. The library outgrew the space so it now hosts the Hockaday Museum of art
Oberlin got its Carnegie Library after a con-woman claiming to be Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter caused a local bank failure. Carnegie felt so bad that he donated money to cover the accounts that students had lost, and added the Library for good measure.
omeka.ohio5.org/exhibits/sho...
I grew up in a small Ohio town, and so many memories are tied to our Carnegie library. I think it's in better shape now than it was then, but as a kid/teenager I didn't care about anything but the books.
Oh, it's glorious! I went to school at Oberlin and they have a surprisingly big one. But I didn't realize until I moved to this little Ontario town that he'd built some in Canada, too.
This thread is my introduction to the fact of Carnegie libraries in Canada! My mom also went to Oberlin, it’s about half an hour from my hometown, Norwalk.
There's a line in Allan Gurganus's "Plays Well With Others", set in the 1980s, that discusses how the barons of the 1880s funded libraries and museums, etc., while the wildly wealthy of the 1980s snorted most of their money up their rebuilt noses. I wonder how he'd write that line now, maybe yachts?
not in Carnegie’s day—estate taxes weren’t introduced in the US until 1916
though Carnegie lived until 1919, he did the bulk of his philanthropy between 1889 and 1910
This is the Carnegie Library in Vermillion, South Dakota. Now used my the USD Law School. You can see the “new” library beyond it. My mil was librarian here many years ago.
Worth noting Carnegie did this when faced with massive strikes and growing radical movements around the country. 1886 was the same year as Haymarket. His business partner/enforcer was literally shot by an anarchist.
Public libraries are great but he and his ilk funded them because they were scared.
