BRADDOCK CARNEGIE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
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Mission Statement
Our mission is to provide reliable access to resources that engage compassionate and creative neighbors.
About This Cause
We believe empowering creative minds is a catalyst for positive change. We uphold and adapt Carnegie’s original vision of our library as a “Center of Light & Learning” for the community we serve. Our vision is for our community to become a model for shared learning and experiences through individual and cooperative enrichment. OUR VALUES We believe in an inclusive community that is welcoming of all and is a place where all can be themselves and, respectfully, express themselves freely. Evolve: Using our inherited knowledge, we are nimble and adapt to the ever changing generational and societal needs, growing and continuously improving in order to bring the best out of those we engage with. Sustain: We are preservationists of history and stewards of learning, providing consistent support to the community. Access: Our doors are open, and we eagerly provide a sense of place, and a feeling of home, for our community members. Inclusion/Integrity/Respect: We welcome and serve everyone and are committed to transparency and accountability. We treat our customers, staff, and diverse communities with respect and courtesy. The History of the Braddock Carnegie Library (1889-present) The Beginning “A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never-failing spring in the desert.” –Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie looked to the city where his first steel mill still operates, Braddock, PA to build his first library in the United States. On March 30, 1889 Andrew Carnegie dedicated The Braddock Carnegie Library. At the dedication, he said, “This building was built to last…for generations to come…a center of light & learning, a never-failing spring of all good influences.” With a building addition in 1893, it became the Carnegie Free Library and Clubhouse. The building offered recreation facilities, including a gymnasium, swimming pool, bowling alley, and billiards hall. A bathhouse was built in the basement of the building to serve the employees of the mill who didn’t have indoor plumbing at home which was the norm. This addition approximately doubled the size of the building, including a 964-seat music hall. Carnegie wanted a place for his workers to gather and share community. In the early years, athletic/recreational facilities were available to members of the “Carnegie Club” who paid quarterly fees. Employees of any Carnegie-owned company received a 50% discount which in 1903 was around $1 per quarter. Time of Transition Andrew Carnegie left the Braddock Carnegie Library to the U.S. Steel Corporation to manage. U.S. Steel’s management of the library continued until 1960 when it was placed under the General Braddock School District’s care. Unfortunately, the School District went through a transition merging with other schools, closing buildings, and couldn’t afford to keep it open. The doors were closed and the windows boarded in 1974. Prior to its closure, the library was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the US Department of the Interior on June 19, 1973. The Braddock Carnegie Library was awarded a Historic Landmark plaque by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation in 1976. Sitting on the demolition list, the community rallied to save it. Through the hard work and elbow grease of David Solomon, the last librarian to serve the community prior to its closing, was able to organize a group to save the library. This group called themselves the Braddock’s Field Historical Society and they formed a 501c3 to raise funds to restore the building. In 1983 they were able to re-occupy the building and open a single room as a children’s library with kerosene heat. The society slowly and steadily started to repair and re-open parts of the building. The wood-paneled gym was restored in the early 1990’s, followed by roof repair in 1998. Once the roof was repaired, the walls of the Music Hall were also restored after the substantial water damage from the leaking roof. The library went through a name change in 2009 from the Braddock’s Field Historical Society to the Braddock Carnegie Library Association. In 2012 the Braddock Carnegie Library was dedicated as a National Historic Landmark. In addition, in 2012 we increased staff and opened a new Children’s Library on the second floor. Sustainable Growth The BCLA opened the Art Lending Library in 2013. This collection is a unique opportunity for community members to borrow art, including life-sized puppets. And to take art into their homes for a few weeks. The BCLA also offers a robust artistic program, including a Ceramics Studio and Printshop. As the library was growing both in programming and usage, it became clear that the time for slow renovation piece by piece was over. In 2018 the BCLA launched its new vision for the library and began a lengthy capital campaign that was interrupted by COVID, and is currently in its final stages. Construction began in 2022, and we look forward to re-opening the building around our 135th Anniversary in 2024. Due to the difficulties experienced through COVID, our $15 million budget quickly turned into a $19.5 million capital campaign. like in the late 1970s our community came together to support the Library and their desire to see its future secure and stable. The 21st Century Library “There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.” The Oxford Dictionary defines a library as a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for people to read, borrow, or refer to. When Carnegie built his first library in 1889 he challenged that definition by offering a social and enriching community center that also had books. Walking in Carnegie’s bold footsteps, the BCLA continues to redefine what it means to be a library. The BCLA provides tools for engaged learning, resources for meeting life’s challenges, a place where neighbors can meet, exchange ideas, and share cultures, resources, and creative strategies with one another while strengthening communities. We offer room for critical thinking, access to multiple pathways of knowledge, arts and culture, curiosity, choice, interaction, and connected idea-making and learning. The BCLA is here for our communities: Braddock, Chalfont, East Pittsburgh, North Braddock, and Turtle Creek. Andrew Carnegie gave our communities the gift and intention of this library building, and it has been a diverse community of people who have ensured that it continues to be truly a free, public space of life-long learning and civic care, open to all - for generations to come. BCLA staff truly embrace the ever-evolving definition of what a library is and how the BCLA really serves as a community hub for Braddock and surrounding communities. Through neighborhood-centered planning, the BCLA is rooted in Andrew Carnegie’s original vision where his workers could further and enrich the health of mind, body, and spirit, but with a contemporary vision to be a free public space of communication, imagination, innovation, culture, and a resource for the life-long learning of ALL our neighbors. This understanding drives the diversity of BCLA’s neighborhood-centered programs, services, and partnerships. BCLA’s daily programs and services are developed in conversation with our neighbors. We offer a large traditional lending collection, an innovative art lending collection, a growing community alternative lending collection that includes hot spots, tables, chairs, baking equipment, coolers, and whatever our community may need, as well as arts and culture programs. We also have a computer lab that allows patrons to utilize technology at the library. The BCLA is always working to be responsive to our community and technology needs and upgrades. In 2023 we developed the fab lab, which includes a 3-D printer, Circuit, glow forge, and vector works software. The children and adult library focus on creating access to technology while opening pathways and resources for engaged, creative learning and life skills. BCLA’s programs and services make us a social infrastructure hub for civic, cultural, and community engagement, creative life-long education, and workforce development. We aim to be an essential, safe place of self-determination, community imagination, life-long learning, and development that honors the knowledge, cultures, needs, desires, histories, and lived experiences of our neighbors. One of our goals is to offer the resources and services of the BCLA to complement the existing services of formal and informal organizations throughout our neighborhood, resulting in over 60 programming partners. For instance, BCLA’s Children’s Librarian spends over 20 hours per week during school hours throughout the Woodland Hills School District, providing invaluable literacy engagement directly to students. The BCLA is a member in good standing with the Allegheny County Library Association.