Andrew Carnegie: From Steel To The Building of Libraries

“A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert”  said 19th century industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

September is Library Card Sign-Up Month and is an opportune time to remember Carnegie whose donations of more than $40 million between 1886 and 1919 paid for 1,689 new library buildings in communities large and small across America.

Join speaker Rick Feingold as he shows how Carnegie amassed an enormous fortune in the steel industry and then became a major philanthropist.  He gave away $350 million, nearly 90 percent of the fortune he accumulated through the railroad and steel industries.

During the late 19th century, when steel was first used as railroad track, Carnegie perfected low-cost steel production. The Carnegie Steelworks, in Homestead, PA, employed men producing steel under primitive industrial working conditions.  Rick will feature the 1892 strike at Homestead which pitted the Pinkerton Detective Agency against the steelworkers ending with 10 deaths.  After Carnegie sold his steel company to J.P. Morgan, he donated his money to build over 2,500 libraries all over the world that educated and entertained millions. Many still exist today. 

Rick’s talk includes the first libraries Carnegie funded beginning in Scotland and Pittsburgh, as well as Carnegie libraries in New Jersey and New York. He will talk about standing outside the Carnegie library in Carnegie’s hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland as well as the stunning Carnegie library in Nyack, NY.

Rick Feingold teaches American Business History at Bergen Community College and holds an MBA from Penn State University

This program is made possible with the support of The Friends of the Livingston Public Library and does not need registration.