Andrew Carnegie Archives

Andrew_Carnegie,_three-quarter_length_portrait,_seated,_facing_slightly_left,_1913

By Theodore Christopher Marceau – Library of Congress, Public Domain, via Wikimedia

Andrew Carnegie was a steel and rail baron of the nineteenth century who made a fortune, and then spent the last two decades of his life giving much of it away. All told, he gave away approximately $350 million (the equivalent of $65 billion) in today’s dollars. Some say he was atoning for the ruthless practices involved in acquiring his fortune. He was a pioneer in developing the vertically integrated industry in which rail, coal, steel, and steamship lines controlled every aspect of production.

After selling his industries to what became U.S. Steel in 1901, he turned his focus to giving away his fortune. One of his major investments was libraries. His idea was to give his resources so that the poor could help themselves, and libraries were a key component of his philanthropic strategy. His first library was built in Dumferline, Scotland in 1883. He built libraries in Great Britain, Canada, other English speaking countries and in the United States. The first in the U.S. was in nearby Braddock, Pennsylvania, opened in 1888.

Source unknown, widely attributed to Andrew Carnegie

According to Wikipedia, by 1923, 1419 grants totaling $45,865,440.10 resulted in the building of 1647 libraries. An NPR story puts the total at $60 million building 1689 libraries. Worldwide, his grants funded construction of over 3,000 libraries. In addition, he invested in educational institutions, including Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University) and Tuskegee Institute (a historically Black college). He also invested in pension funds for his workers and in the arts.

Many of the library buildings constructed with his grants are still standing, often among the distinguished architectural structures in their towns, whether still in use as libraries or not.

So what is the situation today? Libraries offer a tremendous array to Carnegie’s working man or women and their children. In addition to books, a variety of digital resources are available for lending, children’s programs, tutoring programs and a variety of adult education programs are offered in many communities that assist with job skills and job hunting. Computer resources provide online access for those who cannot afford these or have only limited access. Most libraries are providing ever-growing numbers of people with greater numbers of services, often at fairly static funding levels, making them among the most efficient organizations.

The funding picture of libraries is primarily through state funding and local property tax levies. Ohio, where I live recently raised the percentage of its state budget going to libraries from 1.68 to 1.7 percent. This money provides roughly half of library funding overall. The reality though is that while some municipalities invest heavily in their libraries, others, often in cash-strapped rural settings, live almost entirely on state funding. The good news is that there is a great return on investment in library funding. A recent study found that $1 invested in Ohio libraries returned nearly $5 in economic value and Ohio has the highest per capita library use in the country. Federal funding for the Museum and Libraries Services was recently renewed and increased by $11 million, despite Trump administration opposition.

So while there is some good news on the U.S. funding front, many small libraries are struggling, and I hear of some that have closed, leaving “library deserts” in some areas of the country. The situation is worse in the United Kingdom, where nearly 130 libraries closed this past year and many are being run by volunteer staff. Certainly, the situation is more dire yet in other parts of the world.

Could philanthropists play a bigger part? For twenty years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did that, but announced in 2018 that they are winding down their program after funding free internet access in U.S. libraries, and greater technology access throughout the world. While some places like Harvard have huge endowments of $36 billion. A Washington Post article reports that by contrast there are only several billion dollars nationally in library endowments. The case has been made for a National Library Endowment with a goal of $20 billion. How could it happen? The Post article notes that the top 400 wealthiest in this country are worth $2.4 trillion. In other words, less than one percent of this wealth could fully endow this fund at $20 billion, and continue to build it in succeeding years. This could mean hiring librarians in cash strapped urban systems, expanding digital access, developing school libraries, and enhanced technology for research libraries. Mackenzie Bezos has committed a portion of her Amazon fortune to The Giving Pledge, organized by Warren Buffett to encourage just this kind of philanthropy. Wouldn’t it be a bit ironic if she gave this toward a library endowment? Stranger things have happened.

Libraries continue to provide huge benefits to their communities and serve as “springs in the desert.” Who will take up the mantle of Andrew Carnegie in this generation? One hopes the day may come where alongside Carnegie’s name, we see those of Zuckerberg, Buffett, Bezos, Brin, Ellison, Bloomberg, Winfrey, and Cuban. All it would take is for these folks to put their heads–and their money–together and decide to make it happen. The whole country would be richer for it.

Do you remember your first trip to the library? Were you, like me, utterly amazed at the shelves and shelves of books? Were you a little intimidated by the librarians who would “shush” you if you talked in the library? (I don’t think they do this as much any more in our day of kinder and gentler libraries.) Those are some of the early memories I have of going to the library as a boy growing up in Youngstown.

Some of you may have noticed that when I’m not writing about Youngstown, I write a good bit about books–books I’ve read and about reading and literacy. I have to say that I owe my love for books and this value of literacy, at least in part, to the libraries in Youngstown.

Main Library from Public Library of Youngstown website: http://www.libraryvisit.org/library.aspx?id=106

My first memory of the Youngstown Library was of my father taking me to the main library on Saturday mornings. As a child, you were only allowed to go to the children and youth section of the library in the lower level. How I longed to be old enough to explore the stacks upstairs!

Later on, I got a library card of my own. Back then, they had a system that I believe involved photographing the card along with the cards of the books you were withdrawing–long before the days of barcodes! Eventually, most of my trips to the library were to the West Side branch on Mahoning Avenue. I liked going during the summer to get an armful of books to read on hot summer days (when I wasn’t at the pool!). I had fun just exploring the different sections–science, sports, and war history were among my favorites. I’d usually check out the maximum and come back a week later.

West Side Library--Youngstown Ohio from Public Library of Youngstown website: http://www.libraryvisit.org/library.aspx?id=106

West Side Library from Public Library of Youngstown website: http://www.libraryvisit.org/library.aspx?id=106

In high school, I would visit the library for papers I would have to write. Our school librarians introduced us to the card catalogue, and the Dewey Decimal System, and The Readers Guide to Periodical Literature, these green covered journals where you could look for magazine articles by topic, listed in columns and columns of tiny print. (What is amazing is that I can now access all these things, and either read online or reserve materials and even drive through and pick them up!)

Of course as a college student, I spent a good deal of time in Maag Library at Youngstown State. During an honors seminar in my sophomore year when I wrote a long research paper, I discovered that reference librarians could be your friend in helping you find material not only at your own library but at others. They were great–and I think often under-appreciated!

Maag Library (c) Robert C Trube

It seems that libraries are a common thread in my family. My wife worked at the Brownlee Woods and Main Libraries during high school and part of college. My son’s first job during high school was shelving books at our local library in Columbus. And libraries in Youngstown have figured even in our adult life. We celebrated a 50th birthday of a good friend at the Austintown Library. We donated books from my parents home to the Poland Library book sale. I’ve even met colleagues from Pittsburgh at the Poland Library a couple times in conjunction with Youngstown visits and enjoyed lunch at the Kravitz Deli.

A bit of history about the Public Library of Youngstown (most of this I found in A Heritage to Share, a birthday gift from my son who found a copy in a used bookstore in Columbus). The Youngstown Library was founded in 1880 by Reuben McMillan, then superintendent of the Youngstown Public schools. Like many libraries around the country, it received major funding from Andrew Carnegie, but unlike many others, bore McMillan’s name, a tribute to his leadership in the formation of the library. I came across this set of facts from the Depression era that signified the importance of the libraries to working class Youngstown:

Poland Library (c) Robert C Trube

“The Reuben McMillan Library reflected the times when it reported a 20% increase in the circulation of fiction, and a 40% increase in non-fiction circulation. The greatest demand in non-fiction was for books and manuals concerning repairs of furniture and household appliances, automobiles, and other practical household procedures, and books concerning business and science. The library reported a total circulation in excess of 1 million books.”

Then as now, libraries offered the economically disadvantaged the resources to sustain themselves through do-it-yourself projects as well as the chance to self-educate to improve one’s opportunities. Libraries provided books for both educational and pleasure purposes for children at no cost to cash-strapped families.

I’m thankful for the educational and civic leadership that created the library system in Youngstown. It encourages me to see that libraries still are an important part of the Youngstown community. Children’s programs, access to the internet, and promotion of both literacy and technological knowledge are critical elements to educating the next generation of our children for the new economy in front of us.

What are your memories of trips to the library? How do you use libraries today?