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rfmcdonaldOver at Torontoist, Kevin Plummer writes about how Toronto acquired a host of Carnegie libraries early in the 20th century.
These buildings, Beaux Arts jewels though many of them might have been, weren't built without a fair amount of resistance by Torontonian workers who felt sympathy with their fellows.
Late in life, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie—who, according to his detractors, was no friend of working men—embarked on a quest to cement his legacy and life's work. Upon his retirement in 1901, when he sold Carnegie Steel Company to J.P. Morgan for the astronomical sum of $500,000,000, Carnegie launched himself into the philanthropic disposal of his wealth as a full-time occupation. In addition to the hospital wings and university buildings that bear his name, his ideal philanthropic project was the construction of a free library as an educational and community institution. Carnegie donated $56,162,622.97, according to figures in Margaret Beckman, Stephen Langmead, and John Black's The Best Gift: A Record of the Carnegie Libraries in Ontario (Dundurn, 1984), to local communities across the world—including $2,556,660 for 125 projects in Canada—for the construction of free-lending libraries. Toronto enjoyed a number of Carnegie-funded libraries: Yorkville (1907); Queen and Lisgar (1909); the Central Reference Library (1909); Riverdale (1910); Wychwood (1916); High Park (1916); Beaches (1916). Three more—Western Branch/Annette Street (1909), Weston (1914), and Mimico (1914)—would be absorbed into the Toronto Public Library system as the city amalgamated nearby communities. Victoria College (1910) also received a library grant.
These buildings, Beaux Arts jewels though many of them might have been, weren't built without a fair amount of resistance by Torontonian workers who felt sympathy with their fellows.
