Carnegie Library of Homestead

Last updated
Carnegie Library of Homestead
CarnegieLibraryofHomestead.jpg
Carnegie Library of Homestead
Location510 East 10th Ave
Munhall, PA 15120-1910, United States
Type Public
EstablishedNovember 5, 1898 (1898-11-05)
Collection
Size34,000
Other information
Website Library Website
Designated1989 [1]

The Carnegie Library of Homestead is a public library founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1898.

Contents

It is one of 2,509 Carnegie libraries worldwide; 1,689 built in the United States. It was the sixth library commissioned by Carnegie in the U.S. and the seventh to open. 1 Completed in November 1898, it is the third oldest Carnegie library in continuous operation in its original structure in the U.S. after the Main Branch and Lawrenceville Branch of Pittsburgh. 2 The library is an independent entity; it is not a "branch" of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, which operates one main facility and 19 branches within the city of Pittsburgh.

The building houses a library with a collection of over 34,000, the 1,047-seat "Carnegie Library Music Hall" and an athletic club with a heated indoor pool.

History

The library was constructed on a hill in Homestead, Pennsylvania (now Munhall) overlooking the Homestead Steel Works, the site of an 1892 labor strike where Pinkerton agents fought with union workers, resulting in 16 deaths.

A library had been under consideration for several years before the strike, but unlike those at Carnegie's Homestead plant, laborers at the Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock had capitulated to his wage concession demands in 1887, and the Carnegie Free Library of Braddock was founded the following year. "Our works at Homestead are not to us as our works at Edgar Thomson. Our men there are not partners," Carnegie said.

Groundbreaking for the $300,000 project took place in April 1896. The French Renaissance design was the work of Pittsburgh architects Frank Alden and Alfred Harlow. Contractor William Miller and Sons used Pompeian brick for construction of the 220 by 132 foot facility.

Renovations and modifications have not altered the original physical arrangement of the building, that of three separate facilities- library, music hall and athletic club- under one roof. [2]

While Carnegie required communities to use public funds to subsidize the operation of his libraries, Homestead was one of the few exceptions. Operation of the libraries in Braddock, Homestead and Duquesne were originally funded by Carnegie's plants in those towns. After the sale of his business to U.S. Steel in 1901, Carnegie established a $1 million trust to support the three facilities. In the 1960s, the Braddock and Duquesne libraries were turned over to the school districts in those communities by the Board of the Endowment for the Monongahela Valley. The Homestead library is now the sole beneficiary of Carnegie's gift.

Main Entrance Staircase of the Library Main Entrance Staircase of the Carnegie Library of Homestead.jpg
Main Entrance Staircase of the Library

USX Corporation, the successor to U.S. Steel, continued to provide major support until 1988, when the corporation terminated its regular donations and the Borough of Munhall assumed responsibility for the library. Despite the closing of the Homestead Steel Works two years earlier and the precipitous decline in employment and tax revenue, the library remained open and operational with grants secured by community volunteers and the investment income from Carnegie's endowment. When the financial crash of 2008 reduced the value of the endowment by $300,000, the library board furloughed its executive employees and assumed management responsibilities rather than cut services. Fundraising efforts, revenue from athletic club memberships, music hall rentals, and concession sales have maintained the library's viability. [3]

In 2017, the Carnegie launched a 10-year capital renovation campaign to restore areas in the building, preserving its historical features with modernized amenities. New locker rooms and classrooms were added to the lower level; an elevator was installed in the music hall, and a wecome center in the gymnasium. The next phase is renovating the library and meeting rooms, and the start of the seat replacement project in the music hall. [4]

Homestead Library & Athletic Club

In the early 20th century, the Homestead Library & Athletic Club football team, composed of many former star Ivy League players, was considered one of the top semi-professional teams in the country. Hall of Famer Rube Waddell played for the club's baseball team. The amateur teams at the library also won national championships in wrestling and track & field. [5]

In the 1920s and 1930s, four Olympians trained in the library's swimming pool. [6] Susan Laird swam in 1928, winning a gold medal with the 4 × 100 meter freestyle relay team; Josephine McKim won a bronze medal in 1928 and gold in 1932; Anna Mae Gorman competed in the 1932 Summer Olympics at age 16; and Lenore Kight won silver in 1932 and a bronze in 1936. Gorman first swam in 1927 while on vacation. When she returned to Homestead she purchased a three-month membership at the library and pool for $1. At age 92 in 2008, Gorman still swam at the library. [7] [8]

The building has rightfully in the center as the focus 'The Library'-- Music Hall upon the right and the Working Man's Club upon the left. These three foundations from which healing waters are to flow for the Instruction, Entertainment and Happiness of the people. Recreation of the working man has an important bearing upon his character and development as his hours of work.
—Andrew Carnegie on the Homestead Library

See also

Notes

1. ^ It opened November 5, 1898. The Lawrenceville Branch of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh was commissioned together with the Pittsburgh Main Branch in 1890 (the third commissioned in the U.S.) and opened six months earlier than the Homestead Library.
2. ^ The Carnegie Free Library of Braddock, founded in 1888, was closed from 1974 to 1983 due to under-funding and structural deficiencies. The Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny, now a branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, was completed in 1890. Damaged in a 2006 lightning strike, the library moved to a new building in 2008. Carnegie had previously provided two libraries in his native Scotland.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allegheny County, Pennsylvania</span> County in Pennsylvania, United States

Allegheny County is a county in Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in Southwestern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,250,578, making it the state's second-most populous county, after Philadelphia County. Its county seat and most populous city is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's second most populous city. Allegheny County is the center of the Pittsburgh, PA metropolitan statistical area and the Pittsburgh media market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Braddock, Pennsylvania</span> Borough in Pennsylvania, United States

Braddock is a borough located in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, 10 miles (16 km) upstream from the mouth of the Monongahela River. The population was 1,721 as of the 2020 census, a 91.8% decline since its peak of 20,879 in 1920.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homestead, Pennsylvania</span> Borough in Pennsylvania, United States

Homestead is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, along the Monongahela River 7 miles (11 km) southeast of downtown Pittsburgh. The borough is known for the Homestead strike of 1892, an important event in the history of labor relations in the United States. The population was 2,884 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Munhall, Pennsylvania</span> Borough in Pennsylvania, United States

Munhall is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, on the west bank of the Monongahela River. The population was 10,774 at the 2020 census. It is a residential suburb of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Pittsburgh</span>

The history of Pittsburgh began with centuries of Native American civilization in the modern Pittsburgh region, known as Jaödeogë’ in the Seneca language. Eventually, European explorers encountered the strategic confluence where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio, which leads to the Mississippi River. The area became a battleground when France and Great Britain fought for control in the 1750s. When the British were victorious, the French ceded control of territories east of the Mississippi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homestead strike</span> 1892 labor strike

The Homestead strike, also known as the Homestead steel strike, Homestead massacre, or Battle of Homestead, was an industrial lockout and strike that began on July 1, 1892, culminating in a battle in which strikers defeated private security agents on July 6, 1892. The governor responded by sending in the National Guard to protect strikebreakers. The dispute occurred at the Homestead Steel Works in the Pittsburgh-area town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and the Carnegie Steel Company. The final result was a major defeat for the union strikers and a setback for their efforts to unionize steelworkers. The battle was a pivotal event in U.S. labor history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnegie library</span> Libraries donated by Andrew Carnegie

A Carnegie library is a library built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. A total of 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929, including some belonging to public and university library systems. 1,689 were built in the United States, 660 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, 125 in Canada, and 25 others in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Serbia, Belgium, France, the Caribbean, Mauritius, Malaysia, and Fiji.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swisshelm Park</span> Neighborhood of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States

Swisshelm Park is a neighborhood located in the southeast corner of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is represented on the Pittsburgh City Council by Barbara Warwick. Swisshelm Park houses PBF 19 Engine, and is covered by PBP Zone 4 and the Bureau of EMS Medic 7.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homestead Steel Works</span> Steel works in Pennsylvania, United States

Homestead Steel Works was a large steel works located on the Monongahela River at Homestead, Pennsylvania in the United States. The company developed in the nineteenth century as an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a railway 425 miles (684 km) long, and a line of lake steamships. The works was also the site of one of the more serious labor disputes in U.S. history, which became known as the Homestead strike of 1892.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sports in Pittsburgh</span>

Sports in Pittsburgh have been played dating back to the American Civil War. Baseball, hockey, and the first professional American football game had been played in the city by 1892. Pittsburgh was first known as the "City of Champions" when the Pittsburgh Pirates, Pittsburgh Panthers football team, and Pittsburgh Steelers won multiple championships in the 1970s. Today, the city has three major professional sports franchises, the Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins; while the University of Pittsburgh Panthers compete in a Division I Power Five conference, the highest level of collegiate athletics in the United States, in both football and basketball. Local universities Duquesne and Robert Morris also field Division I teams in men's and women's basketball and Division I FCS teams in football. Robert Morris also fields Division I men's and women's ice hockey teams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Union Railroad (Pittsburgh)</span>

Union Railroad is a Class III switching railroad located in Allegheny County in Western Pennsylvania. The company is owned by Transtar, Inc., which is a subsidiary of Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors, after being acquired from U.S. Steel in 2021. The railroad's primary customers are the three plants of the USS Mon Valley Works, the USS Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the USS Irvin Works and the USS Clairton Works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edgar Thomson Steel Works</span> Steel mill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US

The Edgar Thomson Steel Works is a steel mill in the Pittsburgh area communities of Braddock and North Braddock, Pennsylvania. It has been active since 1875. It is currently owned by U.S. Steel and is known as Mon Valley Works – Edgar Thomson Plant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carrie Furnace</span> United States historic place

Carrie Furnace is a former blast furnace located along the Monongahela River in the Pittsburgh area industrial town of Swissvale, Pennsylvania, and it had formed a part of the Homestead Steel Works. The Carrie Furnaces were built in 1884 and they operated until 1982. During its peak, the site produced 1,000 to 1,250 tons of iron per day. All that is left of the site are furnaces #6 and #7, which operated from 1907 to 1978, and its hot metal bridge. The furnaces, designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006, are among the only pre-World War II 20th century blast furnaces to survive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnegie Hall, Inc.</span>

Carnegie Hall, Inc. is a regional cultural center located in Lewisburg, West Virginia, United States. It is within the Allegheny Mountains. Monroe, Greenbrier, Pocahontas and Summers Counties are included in Carnegie Hall, Inc.’s primary service area. This region encompasses approximately 2,900 square miles (7,500 km2) and 73,000 people.

The Greensburg Athletic Association was an early organized football team, based in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, that played in the unofficial Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit from 1890 until 1900. At times referred to as the Greensburg Athletic Club, the team began as an amateur football club in 1890 and was composed primarily of locals before several professional players were added for the 1895 season. In 1894 it was discovered that the team had secretly paid formerly Indiana Normal player, Lawson Fiscus, to play football and retained his services on salary. The team was the chief rival of another early professional football team, the Latrobe Athletic Association.

The Duquesne Country and Athletic Club was a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1895 until 1900. The team was considered one of the best, if not the best, professional football teams in the country from 1898 until 1900. However, the team is most famous for being the first football franchise to be owned by an individual, William Chase Temple.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Longfellow, Alden & Harlow</span>

Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, of Boston, Massachusetts, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was the architectural firm of Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow Jr. (1854–1934), Frank Ellis Alden (1859–1908), and Alfred Branch Harlow (1857–1927). The firm, successors to H. H. Richardson, continued to provide structures in the Romanesque revival style established by Richardson that is often referred to as Richardsonian Romanesque.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny</span> United States historic place

The Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny is situated in the Allegheny Center neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was commissioned in 1886, the first Carnegie library to be commissioned in the United States. Donated to the public by entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie, it was built from 1886 to 1890 on a design by John L. Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US.

John Arthur Hall was an American football player and coach. He played college football for the Yale Bulldogs football team and was selected as a consensus honoree on the 1897 College Football All-America Team. He also served as the head coach of the Carlisle Indians football team in 1898. Hall also played ice hockey on intercollegiate and amateur levels for Yale University and teams in New York City and Pittsburgh.

References

  1. Historic Landmark Plaques 1968-2009 (PDF). Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
  2. "CLoH History". Carnegie Library of Homestead. Archived from the original on February 14, 2009. Retrieved February 12, 2009.
  3. Carpenter, Mackenzie (June 1, 2011). "Rebirth in Homestead: the Carnegie Library". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved June 29, 2013.
  4. https://carnegieofhomestead.com/capital-campaign/
  5. Ruck, Rob Sandlot Seasons: Sports in Black Pittsburgh . University of Illinois Press, 1993. pgs. 28–29
  6. Madarasz, Anne. "Pittsburgh's Ace Mermaids". Sports History. Pittsburgh Sports Report. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
  7. Conte, Andrew (August 3, 2008). "Homestead swimmer's 1932 Olympics star sparkles". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Retrieved March 12, 2022.
  8. Deitch, Charlies (July 31, 2008). "Pittsburgh Sports Tour". Pittsburgh City Paper. Retrieved February 12, 2009.

40°24′25.49″N79°54′10.72″W / 40.4070806°N 79.9029778°W / 40.4070806; -79.9029778