|
|
The Carnegie Libraries
by
Bob Bowman |
|
When
Tyler’s historic Carnegie Library building celebrates its centennial
this year, the event will help remind East Texans of the legacy Andrew
Carnegie left before his death in 1919.
Carnegie, a Scottish-born steel magnate, helped create a network of
public libraries across America in the early l900s. Before he launched
his effort, the country had only about 600 fledgling libraries. By
the time he was done, the nation had added nearly 1,700 more.
In Texas, Carnegie donated $645,000 to 31 Texas communities ranging
in population from Houston,
which had only 44,600 people at the time, to Pecos,
which had only 639. It is little wonder that an early writer called
the old capitalist “the Santa Claus of Texas libraries.”
In East Texas, the Carnegie legacy continues in the communities of
Tyler,
Jefferson, Marshall,
Palestine and
Franklin.
Some of the towns’ Carnegies have remained libraries while others
serve different community roles. Carnegie buildings, however, have
vanished in Clarksville,
Pittsburg, Sulphur
Springs, and Winnsboro. |
|
|
Tyler's Carnegie Library Building
1910
Postcard courtesy rootsweb.com/~txgenweb// postcards/Index.html |
Tyler’s Carnegie
is the home to the Smith County Historical Museum and houses a wonderful
collection of materials related to the county’s history. Tyler is
currently raising nearly a half-million dollars to give the building
a centennial facelift. During the Depression, the building acquired
murals entitled “Industry of East Texas,” painted by Dallas artist
Douthett Wilson.
Palestine’s
Carnegie today houses the Chamber of Commerce in a Prairie one-story
and basement building with a series of graceful arched windows across
the facade. The interior is almost original.
At
Franklin, the Carnegie is similar in design. It served as a library
for only a few years after it was built in 1914 and today houses classrooms
and shop classes for the Franklin school district.
Jefferson’s
Carnegie is still maintained as a library six days a week and
Marshall’s Carnegie is used as an administrative building on the campus
of Wiley College. |
|
|
Andrew
Carnegie
Photo Courtesy The Carnegie Center of Brazos Valley History
|
The public libraries Carnegie built didn’t come cheap. Between 1890
and 1919, he spent $40 million of his own money for library grants.
In Texas he also built one college library and a lecture hall.
Appropriately, the Pittsburgh-based philanthropist began his Texas
grants at Pittsburg in East Texas with a gift of $5,000 in 1898.
Carnegie had a good personal reason for building libraries.
Growing up in Scotland, he had seen his father persuade his fellow
weavers to pool a portion of their salaries and buy books, which were
read aloud as they worked.
When he was twelve, after his family came to America, Carnegie wrote
a letter to the Pittsburg newspaper, seeking public access to a private
library which, to that point, had been reserved for mechanics and
tradesmen. Carnegie never forgot the opportunities libraries gave
him during his career.
But a town didn’t get money for a library because it requested one.
It had to provide a location for the building and annual taxes to
support the library.
If the library proposal had been up to Eugene Debs, an American socialist
leader, no libraries would have been built. Debs believed Carnegie’s
money came from an unfair capitalist system and, as such, no one should
take any of it. |
Published
with permission
All
Things Historical >
January 25, 2005 Column
Provided as a public service by the East Texas Historical Association.
Bob Bowman is a member of the Texas Historical Commission and author
of more than 30 books about East Texas.
More Carnegie
Libraries in Texas |
|
|
|
