Carnegie Libraries Across America

And with the help of original documents, including letters of petition by schoolteachers, bankers, and civic leaders from across the United States, he provides valuable insights into life in turn-of-the-century American towns and the values and aspirations of their citizens.

A picture book biography of American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie

This book is a vivid reminder of the early days of library development in Ontario. The beautiful buildings which still grace Ontario towns and villages, as illustrated, are a part of our provincial heritage. By the turn of the century, a public library was perceived as an important element in the civic fabric of almost every Ontario community. However, the introduction of the Carnegie grants for library buildings gave impetus to the Ontario government programme for library development, and provided a focus for increased support of library services. Rivalry among neighbouring communities to secure a Carngie library heightened this awareness, as did the publicity – in some instances even controversy – which surrounded each step of the grant seeking, site selection and plan approval process. As well, the hitherto unexplored story of Carnegie grant process in each community has been examined, and the role of one man, James Bertram, secretary to Andrew Carnegie, is revealed in absorbing detail. Library plans and design elements are also discussed, and the influence of a few architects on the building designs is revealed; the fascinating involvement of Frank Lloyd Wright in the Pembroke Carnegie library building is one such example.

Familiar Landmarks in hundreds of American towns, Carnegie libraries have shaped the public library experience of generations of Americans and today seen far from controversial. In Free to All, however, Abigail Van Slyck shows that the classical facades and symmetrical plans of these buildings often mask the complex and contentious circumstances of their construction and use. Free to All is the first comprehensive social and architectural history of the Carnegie library phenomenon, an unprecedented program of philanthropy that helped erect over 1600 public library buildings in the United States. Van Slyck skillfully untangles the overlapping and conflicting motives of the many people involved in erecting, staffing, and using the libraries: Andrew Carnegie himself; small-town civic boosters avid for new investment; metropolitan library trustees anxious to maintain the elite character of urban libraries; architects reacting to increased professional specialization; a growing number of female librarians; and the children and adults, frequently immigrants, who came to borrow books.

Carnegie and the Carnegie Corporation provided funding for 1,681 public library buildings in 1,412 U.S. communities between 1889 and 1923. This philanthropy had a great impact on the growth of public library development in the United States. Free public libraries supported by local taxation had begun with Boston in 1849 and slowly spread throughout the country. The Carnegie benefactions made them leap forward. This internationally famous celebrity chose libraries as one of the primary sources for his philanthropy. He also attached two conditions to his offer of money for a public library building--the local community had to provide a suitable site and formally agree to continuously support the library through local tax funds. The latter solidified acceptance of the concept of tax support for libraries.

Walter Gropius associated standardisation with promoting civilisation in 1935, yet Andrew Carnegie’s influence on the proliferation of pattern book public library plans internationally predated these observations by 50 years. Through the first twenty years of his programme, he supported the erection of almost three thousand public buildings across Britain and America. Though better acknowledged in the US than the UK, this philanthropic contribution radically extended the scope of public provision and remains incomparable in its scale and scope in both nations. Frequently engraved with the self-deifying slogan Let there be Light , open access to navigate these new interior public spaces after work coincided with the first provision of electric light. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, professional groups had sought to specify minimum standards of natural light and air for schools and hospitals. However, the commercial quantification of electricity accelerated the development of a readily comparable vocabulary to prescribe adequate quantities of light for all tasks regardless of their location or orientation. Seeking to gauge the extent of universal values, this book concentrates on the design and performance of a handful of early Carnegie library buildings in Britain and America, identifying their response to contemporary design theory, but also by contrast to their respective local environmental contexts. It examines whether their standards of provision were equitable and if these privately financed public buildings were the first roots of generically standardised public environments to be shared transatlantically. The book also argues that the public library building type can provide a datum for acknowledging the twentieth century legacy of shared international environmental standards for public spaces more broadly.