Andrew Carnegie's Library Legacy

Lately, I have been reading and hearing about this huge increase in charitable giving by a new generation of entrepreneurs as well as by America's well-known most wealthiest citizens. Everyone seems to be anxious to get on this latest of bandwagons, fostering green technologies to save our planet and improve the quality of life for many in emerging economies.  Call me jaded or cynical, but I wonder, is this just media pandering or an honest to goodness desire to improve our world?

This got me thinking about Andrew Carnegie, the 19th century industrialist and a pioneer in philanthropy as we have come to know it. According to my research, he gave away $350 million, nearly 90 percent of the fortune he accumulated through the railroad and steel industries.   

When I was growing up, my local library was always a very special place to me. It was where my friends and I would ride our bikes to take refuge on a hot summer day. Living in what would today be called "Exurbia," the local library was the only place in town with air conditioning. In the mid-1960's our library was brand new, sat on the highest point in the community and was surrounded by the last remaining corn fields in the township. Sometimes, you could even watch an afternoon summer thunderstorm roll across those fields while enjoying a favorite book or magazine. That's why one of the most fascinating things I learned about AC is that between 1886 and 1919, his donations of more than $40 million paid for 1,679 new library buildings in communities large and small across America.

Whenever I am traveling and I come upon a new town, I always search out the public library to determine if the town has a Carnegie Public Library.  What drove Andrew to become the patron saint of public libraries?  Click here.

Click here to view some of these historical library buildings.  Here are the Carnegie public libraries in Arizona.  Check if there is a Carnegie library in your town.


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