Historical Significance of the

Allegheny Regional Branch of

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

(Originally the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny)

By Glenn A. Walsh – 2007 December

Photo Album: Allegheny Regional Branch, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh *** History of Andrew Carnegie and Carnegie Libraries

History of Buhl Planetarium *** Allegheny Public Square

On 1890 February 20, Andrew Carnegie and U.S. President Benjamin Harrison dedicated the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny, which became the Allegheny Regional Branch of The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in 1956. The architectural firm of Smithmeyer and Pelz of Washington, D.C., which had designed the Library of Congress in 1889, designed the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny building.

It was the second public library to be established on Pittsburgh’s North Side (then known as the independent City of Allegheny, before merging with the City of Pittsburgh in December of 1907), the first being the Anderson Library Institute which opened in 1850 as Western Pennsylvania’s first public library.

Andrew Carnegie had been one of the “working boys” who benefited from the generosity of Col. James Anderson, who not only started the Anderson Library Institute but who earlier had opened his private library of 400 volumes, and served as librarian, to the working boys of Allegheny City on Saturday afternoons. Col. Anderson’s library philanthropy for one American city inspired Andrew Carnegie to later do the same on a much grander scale. In 1904, Andrew Carnegie commissioned architect Henry Bacon and sculptor Daniel Chester French, who had collaborated on the Lincoln Memorial, to construct a memorial to Col. Anderson, adjacent to the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny building.

Upon completion of Andrew Carnegie’s library philanthropy, 2,509 libraries were donated throughout the English-speaking world (United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies, Seychelles, Mauritius, and Fiji).

The Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny was not the very first Carnegie Library constructed; actually, it was the fourth. Earlier Carnegie Libraries were built in Dunfermline, Scotland (Andrew Carnegie’s original home town) on 1883 August 25, Victoria Library in Grangemouth, Scotland on 1889 January 31, and the Carnegie Free Library of Braddock in the Pittsburgh suburb of Braddock, Pennsylvania (where Andrew Carnegie’s Edgar Thomson Works steel mill was located) on 1889 March 30.

However, the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny was the first publicly-funded Carnegie Library in America, the first of 1,675 American Carnegie Libraries where the local government was required to provide an annual subsidy to the public library. This “annual maintenance pledge,” which usually was no less than ten percent of the cost of building construction, became known as “The Carnegie Formula.”

Only four American libraries (all in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania) were not required to subscribe to “The Carnegie Formula,” each being provided an endowment by Andrew Carnegie: Carnegie Free Library of Braddock (1889 March 30), Carnegie Library of Homestead (1898 November 5), Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall (1901 May 1), and Carnegie Free Library of Duquesne (1904 to 1968). All of these libraries were located in towns that hosted a Carnegie Steel Company mill, except the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall which is located in the borough named after the benefactor, Carnegie, Pennsylvania.

However, from the earliest days of his library philanthropy, Andrew Carnegie believed that the community would not truly feel ownership of their public library, and hence the library would not really be successful, unless the community helped fund it from local taxes. So, “The Carnegie Formula” was a very important part of Andrew Carnegie’s library donation program, and it started in America at the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny, now known as the Allegheny Regional Branch of The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

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