Andrew Carnegie’s impact in the state of Iowa was immense, with more than 99 grants given to communities to build libraries.
Dr. Shana L. Stuart with the Carnegie Libraries Project in Iowa presented about the number of libraries built in the state, as well as Cornell College’s own Carnegie Library.
Stuart has been part of this project since 2004, and in 2016 was given a grant to continue the research.
“That allowed us to hire a number of students to work on the histories of the different libraries each year for the website and digital archives,” Stuart said.
Cornell’s Carnegie Library (now used as the Norton Geology Center on campus) was the second academic library built with a grant from Carnegie in the state. The first was built at Upper Iowa University, and third was built at Grinnell, fourth was built at Simpson and fifth at Drake.
Cornell’s library was built for roughly $40,000 at that time.
One of the things that Stuart noted is that many of those library buildings were built by the lowest bidders, and yet of the more than 90 built, many remain standing to this day. In fact, 48 are still used as public libraries, and 45 are used as different buildings in their community but are still standing.
One of the things people can note for many of the Carnegie Libraries is there were instructions on how they were to be built, with setbacks from the streets and sidewalks.
“It gave an impression that people had to approach these buildings differently than other buildings in those city streets,” Stuart said. “They usually had steps to their main entrances as well.”
Carnegie got his start working as a bobbin boy before moving to a telegraph operator.
“In fact, he was very aligned with the telegraph company during the Civil War,” Stuart said. “During the war, he had paid for someone to take part in the Civil War for him, and he was responsible for maintaining the telegraph lines.”
Following the Civil War, Carnegie got involved in the steel industry, which is where he really made his fortune.
By 1901, when he sold Carnegie Steel, he had $480 million in assets. In 1911 he started Carnegie Corporation, which was his non-profit that maintained administering grants after he passed.
One of the things that Stuart said was interesting about Carnegie was the retirement benefits he paid for those who were injured in the Civil War, some of which that lasted well after his death.
“He left so much money behind to benefit so many people,” Stuart said.
Carnegie’s biggest philanthropic venture was the grants he administered to create free public libraries in many communities.
That amounted to more than 1,400 grants that were administered for communities across the nation, and more than 1,600 libraries built for $41.5 million.
Iowa was one of the states that benefitted significantly with the library grant program, with 101 libraries built and 99 grants awarded.
Even though there are 99 counties in Iowa, however, there wasn’t a library built in every county.
“It was up to these cities to approach for these grants,” Stuart said.
Waterloo and Sioux City had two libraries each built in their communities.
The largest grant amounts administered were $75,000, and the smallest grant was $3,800. The average amount of a grant was $10,000.
Communities had to provide they had a need for the library in their communities, as well as provide the land for the library. One of the other portions of the grant was that the communities had to invest 10 percent of the cost of the project into their libraries over the next 10 years, which meant helping to finance the library.
Many of the libraries featured two separate reading rooms for collections – one for the children’s reading room and one for the general reading room.
One of the things that many of the libraries featured was a sink adjacent to the children’s library segment.
“That boded well for many of these libraries when they looked to add restrooms in the future, as they already had plumbing access built into these buildings,” Stuart said.
For people who are interested in the Carnegie Libraries in Iowa project, visit canegielibrariesiowa.org. People can share there memories of their own Carnegie Libraries in their community on that website.