Fun Fact Series
Fun Fact #514
The Man of Steel (Books)
On his 65th birthday, Andrew Carnegie began to think back on his life. He looked back to when his parents fled poverty in Scotland and he started working as a Cottin Bobbin Boy. Money was tight back then and so he would eat Day-old donuts which the local bakery would hold for him as long as he picked it up before the trash was taken. It was here his life was changed forever that a local benefactor (it's not known who) decided to share his personal library with Andrew and other kids working for the factory –teaching the kids to read, write, and problem solve. It was thanks to these skills and knowledge that Carnegie was able to build his way up to being one of the richest men in the world –famously still eating day-old donuts. Yet now facing his later years he had become a Presbyterian and began experiencing doubts about what good he had done during his life.
Meanwhile in Rockford IL, the City had a problem. You see the land was bought and even prepared to build the Memorial Hall in 1901, but the site was changed at the last minute to escape the smell of the river which was thought to cause disease (Measma or Bad Air Theory). However, having heard of the issue thanks to its proximity to Chicago, Carnegie came and offered to try something new. Having remembered the difference libraries made in his life, Carnegie had already started (in 1900) building them along the east coast and saw this as a way to bring them to the Midwest opening the Rockford Public Library in 1903.
Today Carnegie's Libraries are remembered for being the first Publicly available Library Network in the world, and focused on enhancing literacy on a global scale. A side mission that resulted from thai was the involvement of these libraries as Founders and early centers for “The Simplified Spelling Board” which worked to standardize the American version of The English language, and creating a system to write phonetics for dictionaries (a way of writing how to pronounce the word). Thanks to his considerable wealth, Carnegie's 13 organizations are still around today and are responsible for giving grants, scholarships and even had a hand in choosing the World Peace awards recipients.
