Andrew Carnige libraries

     Hi, this is Thomas. I am taking over the East Nashville Living blog with permission from my mom. This is my first blog post. I will not be putting up posts regularly, but here is the first one. I will be talking about Andrew Carnige (pronounced car-ni-gy)and his libraries.

     Andrew Carnegie was born November 25, 1835. His father was a linen weaver and his mother was a “stay at home mom”. One day His father was kicked out of weaving because steam powered machines could do it faster, with less mistakes so Andrew's mom created a grocery store and started fixing shoes. During this time Andrew tried to get jobs of his own. All of the jobs he got he tried his hardest on.

One day Andrew met a man named Thomas A. Scott. He was beginning the Pennsylvania railroad. This man gave him a job as a private secretary and personal telegrapher at $35 a month. Andrew was so happy! But one day the war came and the railroad needed to give military transportation . Andrew was his right hand man.

     When he got older he resigned from the railroad company and worked in a company that replaces wooden bridges with stronger iron ones. In this type of work he made $50,000 a year. He resigned the iron bridge rebuilding company at 35 . When he quit he created a steel making company and became very wealthy

     He made a few mistakes .For example his employees were pushed to long hours and low wages. In 1892 he gave his support to plant manager Henry Frick who did not listen to workers and hired Pinkerton thugs to scare strikers. ots of people were killed during this time, so Henry Frick was killed by Andrew Carnige to stop what he was doing.

     Andrew's company was unstoppable. soon he sold it to a man named J.P Morgan for 480 million dollars and became the richest man in the world. He did not want to die rich because he found that time was running out, he won't live forever, so what would he do with his money?He started a competition with Rockefeller to see who would give away the most money.

     He started giving dimes to kids but that wasn't a lot of his fortune, so he made public libraries .these were rare in this time , but he made it common to see a public library. He made these libraries special, he wanted learning to be special, like a palace of learning.

    In East Nashville, Andrew created a library. It's called “The East Branch Library” . There is also one in North Nashville, South Nashville, and West Nashville but the one in East Nashville is the only one standing. I went there today and saw it. It was marble with dark oak doors and when you go inside it smells like a private pool. It has the original desks and tables from long ago. If you live in Nashville, I recommend it.