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John Jacob Astor
Born
America's richest man of his day left 400,000 dollars in his will in 1848 for a free reference library in New York, encouraged by the writer Joseph Cogswell, who became its first librarian. The Astor Library opened in 1854, though it did not lend books and kept short hours. In 1895 it merged with the Lenox Library and the Tilden Trust to form the New York Public Library, which is how his gift still serves readers.
More about John Jacob Astor2
Joshua Bates (financier)
Born
A Massachusetts-born banker who made his fortune at Barings in London, Bates gave Boston 50,000 dollars in 1852 on condition the city build a library free to all and provide a building, then gave tens of thousands of books. The Boston Public Library, the first large free municipal library in the United States, opened in 1854, and its main reading room in the McKim building is still called Bates Hall.
More about Joshua Bates (financier)3
George Peabody
Born
Peabody, the London-based American banker, founded the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in 1857, including a free reference library whose five-tiered cast-iron stacks are among the most admired library interiors in America. He also funded a library in his home town, now Peabody, Massachusetts. The Baltimore library is now run by Johns Hopkins University and remains open to visitors.
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James Lenox
Lenox, heir to a New York merchant fortune, collected rare books, including the first Gutenberg Bible brought to America, and in 1870 incorporated the Lenox Library to make them public, building it on Fifth Avenue. Access was famously restrictive at first, by ticket only. Merged into the New York Public Library in 1895, his collections form part of its rare book holdings.
More about James Lenox5
Enoch Pratt
Born
Pratt, a Baltimore hardware merchant, gave the city a central library and four branches in 1882 plus an endowment, on the condition that the city pay an annual sum towards running it. That arrangement, the donor building and the public paying upkeep, became a model Carnegie later copied. The Enoch Pratt Free Library opened in 1886 and still operates as Baltimore's public library system and Maryland's state library resource centre.
More about Enoch Pratt6
Walter Loomis Newberry
Born
Newberry, a Chicago banker and property speculator, died at sea in 1868, and his will left half his estate for a free public library if his daughters died without heirs, which they did. The Newberry Library opened in 1887 as an independent research library in the humanities. It is free to use for anyone over fourteen with a reader's card, and its collections on maps, genealogy and Native American history are heavily used.
More about Walter Loomis Newberry7
Samuel J. Tilden
Born
Tilden, a wealthy lawyer and the Democratic presidential candidate who narrowly lost in 1876, left most of his fortune to establish a free library in New York. Relatives contested the will and won, so the Tilden Trust received only around two million dollars of the intended sum. That was still enough to bring the Astor and Lenox libraries together as the New York Public Library in 1895, a reminder that a bequest is not a completed gift until the courts finish.
More about Samuel J. Tilden8
Henry Tate
Born
Better known for the gallery that bears his name, the sugar refiner Henry Tate also paid for public libraries in south London in the 1890s, including at Brixton, Streatham, South Lambeth and Balham, once the local parishes had adopted the Public Libraries Acts that let them levy rates for upkeep. Several Tate libraries are still open as council branches, more than a century later, which is the test of a gift that came with a funding plan.
More about Henry Tate9
Andrew Carnegie
Born
The scale is unmatched: Carnegie paid for 2,509 library buildings between 1883 and 1929, more than 1,600 in the United States and hundreds in Britain, Canada and elsewhere. His terms were strict and sensible, requiring towns to provide the site and pay ten per cent of the building cost every year to run it, which is why so many lasted. Critics then and now point out that the money came from steelworkers' wages, notably after the violent Homestead strike of 1892.
More about Andrew Carnegie10
John Passmore Edwards
Born
Passmore Edwards, a Cornish carpenter's son who made money from newspapers and magazines, funded around seventy public buildings in the 1890s and 1900s, including some two dozen libraries in Cornwall and London. He refused a knighthood twice and tended to fund places he felt underserved, such as Cornish mining towns. A number of Passmore Edwards libraries, in Newlyn, Shoreditch and elsewhere, still stand, some now used for other community purposes.
More about John Passmore Edwards11
Enriqueta Augustina Rylands
After her husband, the textile magnate John Rylands, died in 1888, Enriqueta Rylands spent a large part of the fortune she inherited on a library in his memory in central Manchester, buying entire collections such as the Earl Spencer's Althorp library to stock it. The neo-Gothic John Rylands Library opened to readers in 1900, merged with the University of Manchester in 1972 and remains open to the public, free of charge.
More about Enriqueta Augustina Rylands12
David Scott Mitchell
Born
Mitchell spent his inherited wealth collecting everything printed about Australia and the Pacific, and in 1898 agreed to leave it to New South Wales on condition the state build a library to house it. He died in 1907, the Mitchell Library opened in Sydney in 1910, and it remains the core of the State Library of New South Wales, open to all, with his endowment still buying material.
More about David Scott Mitchell13
Henry E. Huntington
Born
Huntington, nephew of the railroad baron Collis Huntington, made his own fortune in Los Angeles streetcars and property, then bought rare books and manuscripts on an enormous scale. In 1919 he placed his San Marino estate, library and art in a trust for public benefit. The Huntington Library admits qualified researchers free, while the gardens and exhibitions are open to visitors for an admission charge, which shows how a donor's terms shape access.
More about Henry E. Huntington14
Henry Clay Folger
Born
Folger, president of Standard Oil of New York, and his wife Emily spent decades buying Shakespeare first folios, eventually owning 82 of them, the largest collection in the world. They built a library near the Capitol in Washington and left it in the care of Amherst College; it opened in 1932, two years after his death. The Folger is free to visit, and its 2024 renovation added more public exhibition space.
More about Henry Clay Folger15
Alfred Chester Beatty
Born
Beatty, an American mining engineer who made a fortune in copper and settled in London, moved to Dublin in 1950 and built a library for his manuscripts, early printed books and Islamic and East Asian collections, which he left to the Irish nation on his death in 1968. The Chester Beatty in Dublin Castle is free to enter and was named European Museum of the Year in 2002.
More about Alfred Chester Beatty16
Bill Gates
Born
Gates's modern equivalent of Carnegie's buildings was internet access. From 1997 the Gates Library Foundation, later the Gates Foundation's library programme, gave computers, connections and training to public libraries across the United States, reaching most of them by the mid-2000s, then funded library technology abroad. The foundation wound the programme down in the 2010s, so the question it raises is who pays when the equipment ages.
More about Bill Gates17
Stephen A. Schwarzman
Born
Schwarzman, the Blackstone co-founder, gave the New York Public Library 100 million dollars in 2008 towards renovating and expanding services, and the main Fifth Avenue building was renamed the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The gift was real and large, but carving a donor's name into a landmark public library drew criticism, which makes him a useful case in how naming rights trade on a public institution's reputation.
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