by Peter Krass
Carnegie was also very vocal about the commission’s criteria for selecting trustees for the Institute. He wasn’t interested in having experts in letters and arts serve on the board; instead, he wanted men who would efficiently run the institute like a business. “Besides this,” he added, “I wish a larger number of officials directly from the people in the committee, as I am satisfied that unless the institution be kept in touch with the masses, and therefore popular, it cannot be widely useful.”3 He was determined to be pragmatic in uplifting the masses. For what it was worth, Frick was appointed treasurer of the board of trustees.
As the construction neared completion, Carnegie selected November 5, 1895, for the grand opening. (November 5 was his favorite day to flaunt his success because it was Guy Fawkes Day, the day the British celebrated the capture and hanging of Guy Fawkes, who had planned to blow up Parliament in 1605. Carnegie paid tribute in a slightly different manner.) He invited President Cleveland, Governor Hastings of Pennsylvania, Mayor McKenna of Pittsburgh, fellow capitalists Alex King, Enoch Pratt, and Russell Sage, as well as his cousin Maria Hogan and Lucy Carnegie, among many others.4 Naturally, the press was notified, and four days before the dedication Carnegie the egoist gave Frew an advance copy of his speech so it could appear in the local newspapers in full and go out to the Associated Press and the United Press.
Carnegie, who had been in Pittsburgh since the middle of October to oversee opening-day preparations, wanted everything to be perfect and was therefore shocked when he realized they had overlooked one detail—a naked statue on exhibit in the library’s art gallery. Just a day before the grand opening, he dashed off a note to Frew: “I strongly recommend nude draped since question has been raised. Remember my words in speech. We should begin gently to lead people upward. I do hope nothing in gallery of hall will ever give offense to the simplest man or woman. Draping is used everywhere in Britain except in London. If we are to work genuine good we must bend and keep in touch with masses. Am very clear indeed on this question.”5 Apparently nude statues were not going to raise the consciousness of the provincial masses, he arrogantly concluded.
It was estimated that Carnegie sunk $25 million into his cathedral of civilization, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
As guests arrived on the evening of November 5, whatever biases they might have had against Carnegie were forgotten as they walked the length of the three-story, 303-foot-long, gray sandstone edifice built in the Italian Renaissance style, and entered through the main doors into a spacious hall. The middle section of the building was dedicated to the library with shelving capacity for 250,000 volumes, the stacks made of iron and surrounding structure fireproofed. Housed in the northern wing was the music hall, a semicircular design, with the ceiling an elliptical dome for optimal acoustics. It could accommodate twenty-one hundred guests, and the hall would be home to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for the next fifteen years.
The southern end of the building was the science wing, which included lecture and museum rooms and, on the third floor, six art galleries that provided the most stunning spectacle that night. John W. Beatty, secretary of the Pittsburgh Art Society, had pulled together a magnificent collection of 231 paintings, including works by Diaz, Mauve, Monet, Tadema, and Rembrandt, among many other European masters and contemporary American painters. It was a magnificent feast never before encountered in Pittsburgh, and it marked the end of the dark ages for the culturally deprived city. Over the years, Carnegie would continue to put great effort into procuring the best for his institute, whether it be Egyptian mummies, stuffed alligators, books, or paintings.
Carnegie was proud and erect as he took center stage of the music hall and bid everyone a hearty welcome. In his dedication speech, he reiterated his philosophy for philanthropy—help those who help themselves—and promised to expand the Pittsburgh library’s art gallery and museum, which would include endowments, too, so as not to further tax the city. He also declared he would embark on building libraries at Homestead, Duquesne, and Carnegie, the newly created township named in his honor.6 Louise looked on lovingly as her husband received a standing ovation.
The peanut gallery voiced its opinion, too. Thomas Crawford, who had replaced Hugh O’Donnell as chairman of the Advisory Committee toward the end of the Homestead strike, never stopped mocking Carnegie, and his libraries were a favorite target. “I have always hoped to educate myself,” said Crawford. “But, after my day’s work, I haven’t been able to do much studying. . . . After working twelve hours, how can a man go to a library?”7 For years to come, his sentiments were echoed by the working class, while others sniped that it was better to pay higher wages than build libraries. Carnegie never took criticism silently. When an article in Outlook took aim at his libraries, Carnegie refuted the author’s criticisms that he should pay higher wages instead of building libraries: “You see, Mr. Editor, I differ from him in toto, but perhaps he will be surprised to know that we do pay the highest wages in the world. Every man employed at Homestead last year made two dollars and ninety cents per day average.”8 That amounted to a shade over $1,000 in annual average income for both skilled and unskilled workers, assuming no work stoppages or illness, while the firm generated $5 million in profits.
Philosophical differences aside, the critics raised pertinent questions: Did anyone benefit from the libraries? Were they used by the working class? Did they help elevate the status of current or future generations? Over the next ten years, the Pittsburgh library system would include five branch libraries and an outreach network comprised of thirteen deposit stations, fifty-six school stations, thirty-one home libraries, and twenty-two reading clubs, among other programs to encourage reading and learning. And one day the library would hold 2.5 million volumes.9 The expansion certainly suggested strong usage, but the true beneficiaries were several generations removed from the men who gave their sweat and blood at Carnegie’s profit.
The previously opened Allegheny and Braddock libraries offered a better gauge of current usage, and, in October 1895, Review of Reviews magazine published a study on the libraries. The Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny, opened in 1890, now had 30,000 volumes filling shelves with capacity for 75,000. The prior year’s circulation reached 125,000 volumes, and 160,000 books and periodicals were used in the reading room. The total capitalization for the library was now $850,000, a healthy increase from the $300,000 Carnegie gave. All this stood as a testimonial of its use and solid standing as part of the community.10 In Braddock, home to the Edgar Thomson workers, the population was about 16,000, of which one-third were considered regular readers. The library, opened in 1889, contained 10,000 volumes and total circulation for 1894 was 49,013, which the magazine considered encouraging, as did Carnegie, who subsequently funded a music hall with seating for 1,100, which was completed in 1894. He also built a large gymnasium, a swimming pool, bowling alleys, and billiard and card rooms, but to use the sports and leisure facilities, you had to join the Carnegie Club, which cost $1 for three months. It was estimated that between five hundred and six hundred men and boys belonged, mostly of the skilled-worker class. Clearly, class had much to do with usage: the majority of Carnegie’s workers didn’t know enough English to use the library; or, as immigrants, planned to return to their native countries and were apathetic; or, as menial laborers, were indeed too damn tired.
Regardless of the critics’ barbs, Carnegie pursued his library building as fervently as Ramses II built temples. It was estimated that in the early 1890s, Carnegie spent more than $3 million on libraries and associated concert halls, museums, art galleries, and lecture rooms.11 In addition to the Pittsburgh-area libraries, he had opened libraries in Edinburgh, Ayre, and Jedburgh, Scotland, and in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Fairfield, Iowa. It was just the humble beginnings for a man who would build almost three thousand. As he indulged further, he developed a basic formula for giving: he would donate the building while the respective community would provide the land and pay 10 percent of the b
uilding cost annually to maintain the library. His one other standard request was to have “Let There Be Light” carved over the entrance. Reportedly, Carnegie didn’t insist on his name being carved into the edifice, but he certainly rejoiced when it was; it was the easiest way for a community to endear itself to the philanthropist. And if requested, he was always happy to send a photo of himself to be hung in the lobby.
Just days after the Pittsburgh dedication, Carnegie visited Homestead and formally announced his intention to give $400,000 to build a library, a music hall with organ, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, and club rooms.12 This complex would be one of the few to benefit from an endowment; the community did not have to fork over $40,000 annually per the formula. Apparently, Carnegie’s guilt now worked to Homestead’s advantage. Interestingly enough, the chosen site for the library was right where the state militia had encamped in 1892.
While the papers announced a $400,000 building project, in January 1896, Carnegie gave Charlie Schwab alternative instructions to have plans prepared for a library not to cost more than $200,000.13 Perhaps the other $200,000 was to be used for the endowment, but this wasn’t specified. Regardless, Schwab not only jumped on the idea, but, to further improve relations with the community, he suggested the construction of an industrial training school. “I wish you would show this letter to Mrs. Carnegie,” he wrote Carnegie. “I am sure she would think well of it, as she has ever evinced such an interest in Homestead affairs.”14 After witnessing the effect of the assaults on her husband’s character as a result of the tragic strike, Louise was attuned to any opportunity to rehabilitate and improve his image.
As a sign of his dedication to uplifting the masses, Carnegie committed his entire current supply of surplus wealth to these libraries. When, in February 1896, W. W. Sage of Cornell University approached Carnegie for a donation, he replied, “You notice in reading the proceedings of the Opening of the Pittsburgh Library, I have spent five millions in and around Pittsburgh. I have yet two millions of that to make because I have not accumulated a dollar since I gave up daily attention to business. When it is made and spent I shall hope to see clearly the next field which it is my duty to take up.”15 More so than ever, Carnegie felt it was his duty to aid humankind, and, like a prophet, he would wait for a guiding vision. In the meantime, he would drive his men for more profits so that when the vision was delivered, it could be realized.
Even though the large benefactions intoxicated Carnegie, he still didn’t forget his old friends and how much a small act of charity was appreciated. When a rather dated letter from a cousin, Ann MacGregor, found him that glorified November of 1895, he took the time to respond promptly: “An old letter of yours turns up to-day, and reminds me it is long since I wrote you. I should like to hear how you are getting on. I send you a paper showing what we have been about in Pittsburgh. I beg to send you a draft, which please use as a Christmas gift.”16 On the same day, he sent $5,000 to a school friend from the Dunfermline days.17 Carnegie sent $400 to another chum who was ill and pressed financially; he sent money to J. H. Linville, his early partner from Keystone Bridge, who had fallen on hard times; and when his old telegraph comrade William Holmes died, Carnegie insisted his widow accept an allowance for her lifetime.18
There were also those who were turned away. That generous November, Ella Newton, a missionary in Foochow, China, whom Carnegie had met years ago while traveling there, requested money for her work, but Carnegie said no: “I think that money spent upon foreign missions for China is not only money misspent, but that we do a grievous wrong to the Chinese by trying to force our religion upon them against their wishes.”19 How correct he was; in three years, the Chinese Boxer Rebellion would terrorize the missionaries and other foreign visitors. China was not the only place where trouble between nations was simmering.
For a century, Great Britain had been in an ongoing dispute with Venezuela over the boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana, and in 1895 it heated up to a degree where Venezuela appealed to the United States to assist in its resolution. So, in July 1895, Secretary of State Richard Olney sent a belligerent note to Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, defending Venezuela and invoking the Monroe Doctrine. Salisbury refused to recognize the Monroe Doctrine, which forced President Cleveland to take a more aggressive posture. On return from a two-week duck-hunting trip in December, President Cleveland delivered a shocking message to Great Britain, declaring that Great Britain’s shifting of the boundary was akin to acquiring more territory, which was, in the eyes of America, a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Therefore, he said, Britain must arbitrate with Venezuela or the United States would do what was necessary to protect its interests. This announcement was immediately followed by a special message to Congress, in which he requested funds to create a boundary commission and then implement whatever recommendations the commission made, implying that force might indeed be necessary. The public assumed war.
The day after Cleveland’s message, the stock market plummeted, and a cry rose up on Wall Street denouncing any aggression toward Britain. The pro-Cleveland New York Times roundly criticized the “patriots of the ticker,” declaring, “If they were heeded, American Civilization would degenerate to the level of the Digger Indians, who eat dirt all their lives and appear to like it.” Over at the Tribune, the paper published comments by city icon Abram Hewitt, who considered Cleveland’s message to Congress needless, arrogant, and dangerous.20 As for Carnegie, as he read the papers, digesting the news and mulling the possible consequences of Cleveland’s announcements, he felt as though he was being torn in two, as though he was the sewn-together Union Jack and Stars and Stripes, which he flew over Cluny to symbolize his love for both lands, being ripped apart one stitch at a time.
The situation was also particularly distressing because for the last several years he had been avidly promoting an economic and political reunion between the United States, Canada, and Britain. It appeared to be a far-fetched, even ridiculous idea, but then Carnegie lived on an imaginary island, it seemed at times, sharing a kinship with Prospero from his beloved Shakespeare’s The Tempest. An artist-king and island-ruler, Prospero used the powers of illusion in seeking peace, as did Carnegie with his persuasive commentary and grand gestures. He had attached to the idea of a reunion in the wake of the conflict over the McKinley Tariff, which had pitted the countries against each other.
Carnegie’s first public expression supporting the concept emerged in the newspapers in December 1891 and set off a minor furor. It was initiated when he wrote John Patterson, a business associate in Canada: “When the foreign colony of Canada recognizes its destiny and becomes a part of the American Union, it will be time enough to consider the investment of capital there by Americans. This natural union of the English-speaking people of the American Continent would double the value of everything in Canada, including the men of Canada.”21 Taken aback by the callous and supercilious dig at Canada, Patterson passed the letter on to the newspapers. While the New York Daily Tribune considered it a shrewd observation, the men of Canada were justifiably offended. But as it turned out there was a small movement in Canada in favor of a union, and Carnegie again wrote Patterson, “It seems to me little less than criminal to remain apart.”22 The idea of a union soon evolved into a grand reunion, a vision of race imperialism.
As Carnegie walked the streets of New York, mulling over the reunion of English-speaking races, what he witnessed there made the idea of race imperialism all the more appealing to him. Foreign populations carved out their own neighborhoods, filled with squalor and pestilence. It was these neighborhoods, quarters, towns within a city that pushed Carnegie into believing that race imperialism would educate the less evolved, banish war, and, generally speaking, save the world.23 There was the Italian quarter west of the Bowery—Mulberry Bend—considered the most squalid and lively foreign colony, with Italian laborers comprising 75 percent of the menial labor market, whereas ten years prior the number had been 15 percent.24 Italian women wore
peasant clothes with red bandannas and yellow kerchiefs, with men also remaining in traditional garb, refusing to assimilate. Between the Bowery and the East River was the Jewish ghetto, the most densely populated section of the city, filled with Russian, Polish, and Rumanian Jews. Here, men wore skullcaps and long-skirted caftans, and married women shaved their heads and wore the traditional wig. Yiddish was spoken on the streets. Silent and sullen, Chinatown was established between Pell and Mott Streets, where the inquisitive found old men in traditional costume and pigtails, their blank stares unnerving intruders. No women were visible—they were scattered through the city working as house servants. Southeast of Chinatown was a section dominated by Greeks. There were also German, Turkish, and Arab neighborhoods, and the riotous Hungarians in Little Hungary with brightly lit cafés and Gypsy musicians.
As destitute as the ghettos were, New York was evolving favorably as a city—material progress was proof of that. The most conspicuous piece of evidence was the rising skyline that carried the populace closer to the heavens. It was the dawning of the age of skyscrapers, the manifestation of grandiose visions and, to Carnegie’s benefit, the necessitation of steel cage support structures. When the first steel skeleton building, the eleven-story Tower Building at 50 Broadway, was built in 1888–1889, it was a startling sight. Now the majestic beacon of the Trinity Church spire was barely discernible on the skyline as the towering buildings for the Manhattan Life, Union Trust, Western Union, and the New York Times companies took to the sky. But as Carnegie surveyed the New York landscape and mulled over the race question, it wasn’t the skyline that struck him; it was the accomplishments and failures of the various races. He couldn’t help but realize that the Yankees, the Puritans, the Englishman, the Scotch, the Irish, and the Scotch-Irish controlled the capital, and that the Irish and the Germans dominated the skilled labor jobs, while the other races took the unskilled jobs, were coarse, and inhabited neighborhoods known as the “typhus ward” and the “suicide ward,” among other choice nicknames, where base entrepreneurs sold sleeping spaces for “Five Cents a Spot” and hawked their wares at the “Pig Market.” Such people, stereotyped for sure, deserved no leadership position in the world, according to Carnegie.
