ABSTRACT
Carnegie libraries were built in cities, towns, and neighborhoods across the country, and came in a great variety of sizes. In the standard agreement for grants, the Carnegie program covered construction costs for the new facility, and municipalities paid for land, books, and staff salaries. Between 1886, when the program was founded, and 1917, when it ended as the US entered the First World War, the Carnegie program funded construction of more than 1600 new libraries across the U.S.—an astonishing number that accounted for nearly half of all those in existence at the time. Ottumwa Public Library by Smith & Gutterson from 1902, and Decatur Public Library by Mauran Russell & Garden from 1903, were early Carnegie libraries recognized at the time as exemplary of those in small towns across the American Midwest. The 67th Street Branch Library, by Babb Cook & Willard from 1905, is typical of those developed in residential neighborhoods in Manhattan at the time.
