The Carnegie Corporation of New York MHL is a charitable foundation founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support educational programs in the United States and later around the world. The Carnegie Corporation donated or otherwise helped establish institutions, including the U.S. National Research Council, then known as the Russian Research Center at Harvard University (now known as the Davis Center for Russian Studies. and Eurasian Studies), the Carnegie Libraries, and the Children’s Television Workshop. Over the years, he has also generously funded other Carnegie charities: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT), and the Carnegie Science Institute (CIS).
Founding and Early Years
By 1911, Andrew Carnegie had endowed five organizations in the United States and three in the United Kingdom and given more than $43 million to build public libraries and gave nearly $110 million more elsewhere. But ten years after he sold the Carnegie Steel Company, he had more than $150 million left in his accounts, and when he was 76, he was tired of his charitable choices. A longtime friend, Eliu Root, suggested he set up a trust. Carnegie transferred most of his remaining fortune into it and, after his death, entrusted the trust with the responsibility of distributing his fortune. Carnegie’s previous charitable endowments had used conventional organizational structures, but he chose a corporation as the structure for his last and largest foundation. Registered by the state of New York as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the corporation’s capital fund, originally worth about $135 million, had a market value of $1.55. March 31, 1999.
In 1911-1912, Carnegie gave $125 million to the corporation. At the time, the corporation was the largest charitable charitable trust ever created. He also made it a residuary heir under his will, so he received an additional $10 million, the remainder of his estate after his other bequests were paid out. Carnegie set aside some of the corporation’s assets for charity in Canada and the then British Colonies, an allocation first called the Special Fund, then the British Dominions and Colonies Fund, and then the Commonwealth Program. Amendments to the charter allowed the corporation to use 7.4% of its income in countries that were or had once been members of the British Commonwealth.
Carnegie was president and trustee in its early years. His personal secretary, James Bertram, and his financial agent, Robert A. Franks, also served as trustees and, respectively, as secretary of the corporation and treasurer. This first executive committee made most of the funding decisions.
After Carnegie’s death in 1919, the trustees elected a full-time president with a salary as chief executive officer and ex officio trustee. For a time, the corporation’s gifts followed the pattern already established by Carnegie. Grants to public libraries and church bodies continued until 1917 and went to other Carnegie organizations, universities, colleges, schools, and educational institutions. Carnegie’s gift letter to the original trustees who made the donation stated that the trustees “would best conform to my wishes, based on my own judgment.” Corporate strategies changed over the years, but remained focused on education, although the foundation also increasingly funded scientific research, convinced that the country needed more science and “scientific management.” It also worked to establish research centers for the natural and social sciences.
The corporation gave major grants to the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, the Carnegie Institute of Washington, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the now defunct Stanford University Food Research Institute, and the Brookings Institution, then became interested in adult education and lifelong learning, an obvious extension of Carnegie’s vision of libraries as “the university of the people.” In 1919 he initiated a study of Americanization to explore educational opportunities for adults, primarily new immigrants.