Funding The Libraries example essay topic

549 words
Imagine having so much money you can finish a revolution. Imagine having the money and bien g generous enough to do that. Well, Andrew Carnegie was a very generous person in the industrial revolution, and he had the money to be very generous. His generosity finished the industrial revolution. He made the bulk of his money with his steel company called the Carnegie Steel Company. The Carnegie steel company then changed to the United States Steel Corporation.

In one year, 1900, his company made forty million dollars, in which twenty-five million went to him alone. He made most of his money by selling his huge Steel Corporation to J.P. Morgan. For selling this company Carnegie made over two hundred fifty million dollars. He was very generous with all of his money.

One of the first things he gave was free public baths in Dunfermline, Scotland, where he was born. He also funded free public baths as early as 1869. The first library he funded was built in Scotland in 1881. He mainly funded libraries because he was a big reader himself. He taught himself to read, and he felt that books brought him to the top of his league. He felt that others should have the same opportunity that he had.

One of Carnegie's legendary saying was "Free to the People". This saying is carved in stone over the doors of The Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. Andrew Carnegie would not live forever to keep funding the libraries. Therefore, he came up with an idea that would make libraries have employees and continue buying new books. A library without permanent employees and funds would just run out of money, and no one would return thing if the library never bought any new books. To avoid this, Carnegie thought of "The Carnegie Formula".

This meant that the town in which a library was donated would have to pay at least ten-percent of the cost of the library's building cost for every year. Andrew Carnegie had given away more than any other person up to that point in America. Before he died he had given away a total of $350,695,653. When he died he gave another thirty million dollars away to foundations, pensions, and charities. In total he funded two thousand, five hundred and seven libraries in the English speaking world. He funded one thousand six hundred eighty-nine libraries in the United States, six hundred sixty in Great Britain, and one hundred twenty-five in Canada.

All of this funding for libraries completed the industrial revolution because of a one main thing. It prepared people to get good jobs by reading. It was like the creation of good machinery in farming and manufacturing. That meant that as time went on jobs would get easier, because there would be more smart people.

Andrew Carnegie was very generous with all of his money. He gave America free libraries so we could learn more than ever. He also completed the industrial revolution with his generosity. Who ever thought that one man could end a revolution for the better of the people?