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Trustees grapple with what Carnegie wanted
Tuesday, June 06, 2000 By Jan Ackerman, Post-Gazette
Staff Writer
Industrialist Andrew Carnegie endowed public libraries in Carnegie,
Braddock, Munhall, Duquesne and Dunfermline, Scotland. A story in
yesterday’s editions about the Andrew Carnegie Free Library in Carnegie
gave the list of libraries incorrectly.
Industrialist Andrew Carnegie died in 1919, but since then, he has been
directing the operations of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library in Carnegie
from the grave.
In 1899, Carnegie prepared a document saying that it was his "expressed
wish" that the library always be free to the people and run by a 17-member
board of trustees.
Until now, the trustees honored his wishes, even though the large board
was unwieldy.
"We have been unable to get a quorum at about 75 percent of the meetings,"
said Shawn Wright, attorney for a group of trustees.
When trustees began to try to raise $5 million to make renovations to the
gigantic library, they were told by foundations that their board needed to
reduce its size, eliminate its life trustee positions and model itself
after boards in the Pennsylvania State Library Association.
So board members decided to try to get changes made in the terms under
which they operated. But when they began the process, the paper trail took
a bizarre little twist: The agreement that had hamstrung them over the
years never was filed in the Allegheny County courts.
At least, no one can find any record of it.
So they went to court last month to get it validated, and today they'll go
back to get it changed.
The trustees will appear before Allegheny County Orphan's Court Judge
Walter R. Little today and ask him to set aside Carnegie's wishes and
modify the trust agreement that Carnegie drew up.
Instead of a 17-member board, they want an even dozen, with no lifetime
members.
"If he would have left us some money to do it, we would have followed his
rules," said Carnegie Mayor Bob Heinrich, an ex-officio member of the
library board.
"There is no money to fix up the building. We cannot let it deteriorate.
It is too important to the community," he said.
The heating and air conditioning systems are top priorities. In March, the
boiler failed and the library had to close until it was repaired.
If Little grants the request, Glenn A. Walsh of Mt. Lebanon, a lifetime
trustee, will resign. Walsh, who is historian of the library, doesn't want
to discuss his decision, but it is clearly related to his reluctance to
see Carnegie's wishes revoked.
Today's hearing will be Little's second encounter with the writings of
Andrew Carnegie. He also heard the board's motion regarding the library
last month after its discovery that Carnegie's "declaration of trust" --
the document that has been controlling the library's operations all these
years -- never was recorded as a legal document in the Allegheny County
courts.
"It was referred to in some public documents, but it was not a matter of
public record," said Allen Turske of Carnegie, a member of the library
advisory group.
"The original document was missing," said Wright, who sent some trustees
to Mellon Bank, where they had a lock drilled off a safe deposit box,
looking for a signed original.
"They couldn't find it," he said.
To remedy that problem, the trustees went to Little with a motion asking
him to record a copy of the declaration of the trust, dated in New York on
April 20, 1899. The document carried the typewritten name of Andrew
Carnegie but wasn't signed.
At their request, Little waived a local rule of the court that required
that unacknowledged instruments of trusts must be recorded on the basis of
proof of a signature.
Little accepted an affidavit from Elizabeth B. Martin, president of the
board of trustees, who said she had conducted "a diligent search for the
original declaration of trust of Andrew Carnegie" and failed to find
one.
The judge did not hold a hearing on the request or demand proof of the
veracity of the document. Instead, he allowed the trust to be recorded May
12 -- 101 years after it was prepared.
A century ago, Carnegie was so pleased that the borough of Carnegie named
itself after him that he endowed the community with its own Andrew
Carnegie Free Library, even though he didn't operate any steel mills
there.
The library, a massive, turn-of-the-century brick structure sitting high
on Beechwood Avenue, surrounded by giant maple trees, was among five
libraries that Carnegie endowed, and the only one that he allowed to use
both his first and last names, said Walsh as he walked through the
building one day last week.
The others were in Braddock, Munhall, Duquesne and Dunfermline, Scotland.
The Duquesne library has been torn down.
Walsh said Carnegie donated $244,000 to purchase the property in Carnegie
and construct a building to house a free library, a music hall, a lecture
hall and a gymnasium.
The grant also included an additional $10,000 for the purchase of the
library's first supply of books.
Today, the library contains 32,000 cataloged items and is used by
residents from Carnegie and adjoining communities. Carnegie's portrait
hangs over a mantel and many of the book shelves are originals.
The music hall, which has 788 seats in use, is so acoustically perfect
that recording artists sometimes rent it to record compact discs, Walsh
said. It hosts plays by Stage 62, a local theater group; the Pittsburgh
Savoyards, who perform Gilbert and Sullivan productions; and several other
groups.
The seats are the originals, which still have wire hooks under them where
"gentlemen could put their top hats," Walsh said.
"We do get complaints, since there are no cushions," he said.
The 120-seat lecture hall has the original seats from the old Grand
Theater in Carnegie. Walsh said it was built for Carnegie council but now
is used for lectures and rented to a church on Sundays.
A dance studio rents the gymnasium in the basement, and one room on the
second floor is reserved as a Civil War museum that contains battle flags,
rifles, photographs and letters collected by local war veterans who began
meeting there in 1906. Walsh said the room is open to the public from 6 to
8 p.m. every Wednesday.
The library is stately and historically significant, but it has never been
renovated.
"That is both its strength and its weakness," said Turske, who also is
executive director of the Chartiers Valley Partnership, a nonprofit
organization that is trying to pull together resources to restore the
library to its former grand state.
He said the infrastructure, heating, air conditioning and electrical
systems are top priorities "because of what dampness and cold can do to a
building."
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