Andrew Carnegie, born 1835 in Scotland progressed through the ranks of the victorian era and came to lead the American steel industry. Eventually gaining the casual title of 'richest man in the world', taking into account inflation, he infact still remains one of the richest people in history. Soon realising that there's only so much wealth that one man could make use of in his day and age, he set about giving almost all of it away. By the time of his death in 1919 he had given away nothing short $350 million, more than 90 percent of his fortune, after devoting the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education, and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall in New York and began the establishment of public libraries that became his lasting worldwide legacy. In total, Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states and across English speaking countries such as Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, and Fiji.
One of the closest libraries to me that still stands under his name sits in the Tuebrook area of Liverpool. Built in 1905 and donated to the people of the city by Andrew Carnegie, Lister Drive library is a two-storey brick built structure with stone dressings, a slate roof and an octagonal turret. It was designed by Liverpool Corporation architect Thomas Shelmerdine who was responsible for a number of Liverpool’s libraries of the era, and originally contained a lending library and a number of reading rooms.
The main reading gallery
The same room shown in 1915
Again shown during a childrens study class in 1917
From up here members of the community could browse through shelves of books and archives to either take downstairs to read or lend and bring back via a registered membership.
At one time the octagonal structure of the building allowed light to flood down into the lending section of the building through this skylight which has since been boarded up.
The poster to commemorate the opening of the library on June 28 1905
The men who built Lister Drive Library in 1904/05
The central reading room was also designed to maximise the amount of light inside the building. At this time although electricity was in circulation, the use of natural light for reading was central to library design and had been throughout the Victorian era.
