Andrew Carnegie

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.