Andrew Carnegie Strikes Back

"CARNEGIE BUILDING: Completed in 1904 with a gift from Penn State trustee and industrialist Andrew Carnegie, it was the university's first library building. It typifies more than 2,000 college and community libraries built with donations from Carnegie."

If you know a lot about American history and industrialization, you've probably heard the name of Andrew Carnegie before. If you grew up in the Pittsburgh area, the original center of Andrew Carnegie's operations, you've probably hoped that you would never hear the name of Andrew Carnegie again. Unfortunately, it is impossible to escape Andrew Carnegie. He was just too rich and powerful.

For those who don't know, Andrew Carnegie was a businessman who immigrated to America from Scotland in 1848, as America's period of economic growth and industrial revolution was just beginning. From a relatively humble start he worked his way through various industries to eventually become the head of a massive steel-producing company, which made him one of the wealthiest and most influential people in the country, and indeed the world. Next to his massive amounts of money, Carnegie was also notorious for gaining said money through some morally dubious practices. His attempts to monopolize the steel industry and exercise total control over the supply chain of his steel production would probably be banned now. One incident that particularly marred Carnegie's reputation was the Homestead Strike. Carnegie publicly claimed to be for labor unions and against strikebreaking, but when unrest began to occur among his own workers, he left them in the hands of a subordinate, Henry Clay Frick, who responded to the strike with armed force rather than negotiation. The incident resulted in multiple deaths of both police and workers, and while the strike ultimately failed, Carnegie faced massive backlash for his irresponsibility.

Possibly due to wanting to atone for this infamy (or at least pretend that it didn't happen), near the end of his life Andrew Carnegie adopted the philosophy that "the man who dies rich dies disgraced"; he believed that it would be wrong to keep his wealth to himself, and that he should instead use this money to improve the lives and chances of other people. To this end, he sold his steel company (which went on to form U.S. Steel), announced his retirement from business, and devoted the remainder of his life to philanthropy. It's important to note that Carnegie did not just donate his money to any and every cause; his theory was that the best way to improve people's lives was to give them the tools they needed to build themselves up, just as he believed he had done with his own life. For this reason, Carnegie gave vast sums of money toward building over 2,500 libraries around America, with the logic that improving people's knowledge and education would inspire them to better themselves and enable them to succeed. As you can probably guess, the Carnegie Building at Penn State is one of those libraries. Despite no longer being a library, it still bears Carnegie's name; presumably he wanted the world to know exactly who its generous donor was.

Penn State's Carnegie Building bears one distinction of note. It seems that Carnegie decided to begin construction of the building at around the same time another wealthy businessman, one Charles M. Schwab, also sought to show off his wealth and generosity by building his own structure at Penn State. This would of course become the Schwab Auditorium, which I may cover in its own post in the future. Naturally, both being showoffs with something to prove and lots to lose, as well as being close friends and business associates, Carnegie and Schwab competed to make a bigger and better building than the other man, and thus assert their dominance. Or so the story goes. OnwardState.com has written a wonderful article about this story and the friendship between Schwab and Carnegie which is definitely worth a read, as long as you're not the sort who is annoyed by the term "bromance". (If you didn't click the link and are still wondering: Schwab's building was the bigger one by about 116 square feet. Better luck next time, Carnegie.)

As for the Carnegie Building itself, it's seen its fair share of change since construction was completed in 1904. Starting out as Penn State's first devoted library (Old Main having served as a library in the meantime), the building was eventually renovated and used by the music programs for office and storage space, as well as for rehearsals. It received a name change from Carnegie Library to Carnegie Hall, which meant that if you were in Penn State's music programs from the '40s to the '60s, you could tell people that you had performed in Carnegie Hall and not be wrong. After this period, the School of Journalism set up in the building, and the Daily Collegian had its headquarters here. It was probably around this time that the building became known as Carnegie Building so that nobody would ever have to change the name again. By the early 1990s, the School of Journalism had moved out and the School of Communications had moved in. That college is the one which occupies the building to this day.

Andrew Carnegie would likely be pleased to see where his namesake building at Penn State has gone over the years. It has always remained a bastion of learning of various kinds while keeping his name to remind generations beyond him of his philanthropy. The subject that now holds the floor is one whose rapid recent growth in importance and technology has drawn comparison to the same industrial revolution that made Carnegie himself so rich and famous. Perhaps another Andrew Carnegie will rise to prominence from Penn State's educational programs? Stay tuned for next week, when I'll unveil my blueprints for the "Swanson Building"...

President Atherton Saves the School and the Football Team

"PRESIDENT ATHERTON: Buried here. Headed Penn State from 1882 to 1906 and brought it back from the brink of ruin. He drafted and championed the Hatch Act of 1887 and Morrill Act of 1890, establishing federal aid to higher education, and served as first president of the Land-Grant College Association."

No, he wasn't President of the United States. But I'm willing to bet that he would have done a pretty good job of it.

George Washington Atherton was born in 1837 in the town of Boxford, Massachusetts, and before he even became an adult he was already proving himself to be a pretty cool dude. His father died when he was twelve, so he and his mother had to support themselves through difficult physical work. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Atherton signed himself up for the Union Army and evidently served with distinction, as he advanced to the rank of captain before being honorably discharged. Of course, after spending much of your early life doing labor and joining the army, the obvious next step is to go to college. Not just any college, either: Atherton graduated from Yale, which even back then was known to be one of the greatest colleges in America. (How he paid for tuition is anyone's guess.) After graduating, Atherton apparently loved the college life so much that he became a university teacher, and after much moving around and working up the ranks he went to Penn State and was unanimously elected its eighth president in 1882.

The Penn State of 1882, you must understand, bore very little resemblance to its present-day incarnation. The university had started out in 1855 as a school of the agricultural sciences, with classes that specialized in that area. It was also rather unpopular and not well-known; its graduating class in 1882 was made up of seven students, and the Pennsylvania state government looked down on the university and withheld funding. Changing the image of the school with such few resources was a difficult task, but Atherton did it anyway, because he was just that good.

Under Atherton's direction, Penn State took a different turn. Atherton refocused the entire college, reducing the emphasis on agricultural education in favor of engineering, mechanics, electonics, and more classes that were better suited to Pennsylvania's industrialization in the late 1800s. He also greatly expanded the overall reach of the college and its classes, adding correspondence courses and summer classes, resulting in a great increase in the number of students attending the university.

Changes to student life were also massive. Atherton relaxed some of the awfully strict regulations on female students that existed at the time, including (gasp!) allowing women to attend dances. While double standards were still far beyond fair, or even at today's level, this was at least a small step in the right direction. Atherton also oversaw the expansion of extracurricular activities. This included setting up athletic programs and beginning the construction of Beaver Field so that teams would have somewhere to play that wasn't the lawn in front of Old Main. The dedication of a field especially for sports shows the importance that sports were beginning to take on college campuses, especially football, which despite being a relatively new game was sweeping the nation's colleges. These athletic programs led directly to the teams we have now. So, when you watch Penn State sports on TV or play on a team, you have Atherton to thank...or to blame.

Finally, and perhaps most strangely, Atherton instituted strict military discipline, with drills, room inspections, mandatory attendance, and all the things that would probably get him in lots of trouble today. Yet everyone still loved him. After all, such discipline was considered totally fair, even normal, for the time, and even if he was harsh, few people were capable or willing to argue with the results he got. It also helped that Atherton convinced the school board to cut two weeks from the academic year, which obviously was a widely celebrated move all around.

Atherton's programs were intended to improve the university's image, and it worked. The class size ballooned, the university began to receive more funding from the government, and Penn State made a name for itself among engineering schools. By the time Atherton left office and subsequently died in 1906, he was being revered as the "second founder" of the college. One of the main streets in State College is named "Atherton Street" in his honor to this day. (Incidentally, Atherton Hall is not named for President Atherton. That honor went to his wife, Frances Atherton, who is perhaps most notable today for supposedly haunting the Old Botany building to watch over her husband's grave.)

You may have heard George W. Atherton's name many times before without really knowing what it meant, but hopefully now you recognize the impact that he has had on Penn State University. Penn State would simply not be here today if not for President Atherton's achievements.

How old is Old Main? Also: a skeletal mule, and a shining example of Poor artwork

"OLD MAIN: Built in 1930, using limestone blocks from the first Old Main, completed on this site in 1863. The original building housed classrooms, offices, laboratories, and student and faculty living quarters. It also served, as does its successor, as Penn State's administrative center. Inside are the famous land-grant frescoes by Henry Varnum Poor."

Everybody who has been on the University Park campus long enough is at least vaguely aware of Old Main, whether passing by it on the way to class or hearing its bell chime every quarter-hour. It's a standard fixture of the campus, and its architectural design evokes the grandeur that comes with the university's history. One might think that this building has been around since the founding of the college itself.

This isn't quite right. Although Penn State was once centered around Old Main, it wasn't the same Old Main we know today.

This is the building that everybody associates with the name "Old Main". With its prominent location on campus, it's surely a sight you've seen before. However, this spot was once taken by a different building. Built in 1863 after six years of work (Penn State University itself having been founded just a few years earlier in 1855), the original Old Main was simply called the Main Building, since obviously it hadn't had the time to become old yet. The "Main" part of the name is definitely fitting, though; as the building where virtually every campus facility was located, from residence halls to classrooms and offices, it was essentially synonymous with the University Park campus itself. Even the construction of the building was largely local, the structure being built using limestone gathered from the area immediately around it and hauled to the site by mules, including Old Coaly, who you may know as "that spooky scary skeleton in the HUB". 

If you've read the sign located conveniently next to the spooky scary skeleton in the HUB, you may know that Old Coaly was a hard worker, beloved by the students in those days and held as an unofficial mascot for the university. While the community's love wasn't enough to earn our sports teams the name of "Penn State Mules", there was enough support for him that after Old Coaly's death in 1893 his skeleton was preserved for future generations, being housed in Old Main itself at first (this was around the time that the building acquired that name). The Wikipedia page on Old Main informs us that "since his death, his skeleton has taken residence in many Penn State buildings", and since I've been unable to find a reason why the skeleton has been housed in multiple buildings, based on this sentence I can only conclude that Old Coaly's skeleton, just as hard a worker in death as in life, continued to walk around campus by itself, finally trapped and sealed inside the glass case in the HUB for fear of what would happen should he become hostile and turn on the university that once loved him. (That's probably not the real reason, but I like my story better.)

Old Coaly's tremendous effort toward our school certainly paid off in the short term. The finished Main Building held classrooms, offices, residence halls, and all the assorted rooms that Penn State needed to be a full university. Even sports teams used its lawn for a field. Sadly, the heavy use that the building went through during the late 1800s and early 1900s, as well as a fire that damaged the roof in 1892, resulted in the original building being declared structurally unsound and unfit for renovation in the 1920s. The old Old Main was demolished in 1929 to make way for a new Old Main in 1930, which is the Old Main that we know today. (This makes the current building about 85 years old now, if you were still wondering.) The new building continued to be a major center of student activity, but as time passed and the campus expanded, its roles were largely supplanted by newer structures.

By now, Old Main's livelihood has declined sharply since its glory days. While it was once full of students living, learning, and working throughout its rooms and halls, nowadays few if any student organizations and classes meet inside the building. The wide lawn is still a fairly popular spot for gatherings and tourist photos, but it is not the same as it was back when Old Main was the true center of the campus. Its former roles are taken up by the HUB as well as other buildings devoted to residence, classrooms, and college life. Most of the people who still use the building are administrators who run the university from their offices.

Naturally, there's some pretty sweet paintings inside there that few people will see.

This is part of the "land-grant fresco" mentioned on the sign, painted by famed fresco artist Henry Varnum Poor with assistance from his daughter Anne and loads of cash from grateful students. The entire painting took ten years to make, although it was not a continuous process; the first portion was begun in 1939 and finished in 1940. Poor's work was far from poor work, so Penn State students took it upon themselves to raise funds to get Poor to return and paint more frescoes on more walls inside the building. Unfortunately, like most cool projects started in 1940, these efforts were totally derailed by the coming of World War II, and it would not be until 1949 that the paintings could be completed.

The paintings, celebrating Penn State's history from its founding on land granted by the state of Pennsylania to the vibrant campus life and student activities toward the end of the 1940s, were universally judged to be awesome, which is why it's a shame that so few activities take place in the Old Main building now. There is good news, though: this part of Old Main is open for viewing during business hours, from 8 AM to 5 PM on Monday through Friday, so that curious students can see Poor's rich artwork for themselves. You can also see some pictures of the frescoes on the Penn State website, but if you happen to have the time in your busy college schedule, please take a moment to check out this beautiful part of Penn State history for yourself.