Andrew Carnegie funded construction of 2,500 libraries in the United States, Britain and Ireland
Andrew Carnegie was a small man who wore stovepipe hats and elevating shoes to seem taller. Some made light of that, but not for long.
Carnegie became a big man in the American Industrial Revolution, building steel mills in Pittsburgh. He rolled out train tracks and girders for bridges and buildings and plate armor and barrel steel for battleships.
The little man born of impoverished parents in a Scottish knitting town was America’s first titan of industry. By age 26, he was wildly rich and on his way to amassing a fortune that today would be tens of billions.
Book about Carnegie Libraries
Free to All: Carnegie Libraries & American Culture, 1890-1920
Picture of abandoned Carnegie library
There is a picture of an abandoned Carnegie library in Hopkinsville, Kentucky on Flickr. There is some interesting commentary by Flickr users below the picture.
Nebraska Library Commission
The Nebraska Library Commission has been putting pictures on Flickr. Here is the Carnegie Library in Ponca, Nebraska.
Another Carnegie in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.