When the corner-stone of the Peterhead Free Library in Scotland was laid, Aug. 8, 1891, the wife of Mr. Carnegie was asked to lay the stone with square and trowel, and endeared herself to the people by her hearty interest and attractive womanhood. She was presented with the silver trowel with ivory handle which she had used, and with a vase of Peterhead granite from the employees of the Great North of Scotland Granite Works.
Mr. Carnegie did not marry till he was fifty-two years of age, in 1887, the year following the death of his mother and only brother Thomas. The latter died Oct. 19, 1886. Mr. Carnegie's wife, who is thoroughly in sympathy with her husband's constant giving, was Miss Louise Whitfield, the daughter of the late Mr. John Whitfield of New York, of the large importing firm of Whitfield, Powers, & Co. Mr. Carnegie had been an intimate friend of the family for many years, and knew well the admirable qualities and cultivation of the lady he married. He once wrote: "There is no improving companionship for man in an ignorant or frivolous woman." Miss Whitfield acted upon the advice which Mr. Carnegie has given in some of his addresses: "To the young ladies I say, 'Marry the man who loves most his mother.'" Mr. Carnegie now has two homes, one in New York City, the other at Cluny Castle, Kingussie, Scotland. He gives little personal attention to business, having delegated those matters to others. "I throw the responsibility upon others," he once said, "and allow them full swing." Mr. Carnegie is a man of great energy, with cheerful temperament, sound judgment, earnestness, and force of character. He has a large, well-shaped head, high forehead, brown hair and beard, and expressive face.
Mr. Carnegie's gifts in his adopted country have been many and large. To the Johnstown Free Library, Pennsylvania, he has given $40,000. To the Jefferson County Library at Fairfield, Iowa, he has given $40,000, which provides an attractive building for books, museum, and lecture-hall. The late Senator James F. Wilson gave the ground for the fire-proof building. The library owes much of its success to its librarian, Mr. A. T. Wells, who has given his life to the work, having held the position for thirty-two years. For many years he labored without salary, giving both time and money.
To the Braddock Free Library, Mr. Carnegie has given $200,000. Braddock, ten miles east of Pittsburg, has a population of 16,000, mainly the employees of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works; and the village of Homestead lies just opposite. The handsome library building has a very attractive reading-room, which is filled in the evening and much used during the day by the families of the employees. There is also a large reading-room exclusively for boys and girls, where are found juvenile books and periodicals. The librarian, Miss Helen Sperry, writes: "There is a great deal of local pride in the library, and it grows constantly in the affection of the people."
The building was much enlarged in 1894 to accommodate the Carnegie Club of six hundred men and boys. The new portion contains a hall capable of seating eleven hundred persons, a large gymnasium, bathrooms, swimming-pool, bowling-alleys, etc.
"In order to encourage public spirit in Braddock," says the Review of Reviews for October, 1895, "a selection of books on municipal improvement, streets and roads, public health, and other subjects in which the community should be interested, was placed on the library shelves; and it is said that these books have been consulted by the municipal officers, and results are already apparent." This is a good example for other librarians. Much work is being done in local history and in co-operation with the public schools.
To the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny City, Mr. Carnegie has given $300,000, the city making an annual appropriation of $15,000 to carry on its work. The building is of gray granite, Romanesque in style, with a shelving capacity of about 75,000 volumes. The library has a delivery-room, a general reading-room, women's reading-room, reference-room, besides trustees' and librarians' rooms. The building also contains, on the first floor, a music-hall, with a seating-capacity of eleven hundred, where free concerts are given every Saturday afternoon on a ten-thousand-dollar organ; there is an art-gallery on the second floor, and a lecture-room. The latter seats about three hundred persons, and is used for University Extension lectures, meetings of the Historical Society, etc. A room adjoining is for the accommodation of scientific societies. The city appropriates about $8,000 yearly for the music-hall, fuel, repairs, etc.
The Allegheny Free Library was formally opened by President Harrison on Feb. 13, 1890. Mr. Carnegie said, in presenting the gift of the library, "My wife,—for her spirit and influence are here to-night,—my wife and I realize to-night how infinitely more blessed it is to give than to receive.... I wish that the masses of working men and women, the wage-earners of all Allegheny, will remember and act upon the fact that this is their library, their gallery, and their hall. The poorest citizen, the poorest man, the poorest woman, that toils from morn till night for a livelihood, as, thank Heaven, I had that toil to do in my early days, as he walks this hall, as he reads the books from these alcoves, as he listens to the organ, and admires the works of art in this gallery, equally with the millionnaire and the foremost citizen, I want him to exclaim in his own heart, 'Behold, all this is mine. I support it, and I am proud to support it. I am joint proprietor here.'" "Since the library opened four years ago," says Mr. William M. Stevenson, the librarian, "over 1,000,000 books and periodicals have been put into the hands of readers.... The concerts have been exceedingly popular, and incidentally have helped the library by drawing people to the library who might otherwise have remained in ignorance of the popularity and usefulness of the institution."
Mr. Carnegie's greatest gift has been the Pittsburg Library. It is a magnificent building of gray Ohio sandstone, in the Italian Renaissance style of architecture, with roof of red tile. The architects were Longfellow, Alden, and Harlow, their plan being chosen from the one hundred and two sets of plans offered. The library building is 393 feet long and 150 feet wide, with two graceful towers, each 162 feet high, and has capacity for 300,000 volumes. The entire "stack" or set of shelves for books is made of iron in six stories, and is as nearly fireproof as possible. The lower stories are for the circulating-books; the upper stories for reference-books.
The library proper is in the centre of the building, reached by a broad flight of stone steps. Above, cut in stone, are the words, "Carnegie Library; Free to the People." The vestibule, finished in marble with mosaic floors, is handsomely decorated. On the first floor are the circulating-library, "its blue-ceiling panels bordered with an interlace in orange and white," a periodical room on either side, one for scientific and technical, the other for popular and literary magazines, with rooms for cataloguing and for the library officials.