The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Dundee library’s big day
Today’s main image is a quirky find from the surviving stockpiles of printed material famously generated in Dundee during the 20th Century.
The 111-year-old sketch has been supplied by Kenneth Baxter from Dundee University’s Archive Services team and depicts Andrew Carnegie, the Fife-born industrialist who led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th Century and became one of the richest-ever citizens of the US.
Filling in the story behind the artwork – which includes a streetlamp superimposed with the words “sweetness and light” – Dr Baxter explains: “It is a cartoon by the Dundee writer, artist and journalist Joseph Lee and appeared in his publication the City Echo in September 1911.
“It marked the official opening of the new Central Reading Rooms on the corner of Barrack Street and Ward Road by Andrew Carnegie which took place on September 12 1911. The Central Reading Rooms were intended to relieve some of the pressure for space at Dundee’s main library located in the Albert Institute.
“The building cost £11,000 with the site being provided by Sir William Ogilvy Dalgleish at a cost of £5,000.
“The building was designed by the city architect James Thomson and was said to be inspired by an unconventional treatment of English renaissance architecture.
“The ground floor of the two-storey building was to serve as reading rooms, while the upper floor was to be a sculpture gallery.
“The building would later become the Barrack Street Museum, housing the city’s natural history collections. It is now home to the McManus collections unit.”
He adds: “Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline in 1835 and made a fortune in the American steel industry.
“He would become famous for his philanthropy and in 1901 he gifted £37,000 to Dundee to allow the construction of a number of branch libraries cross the city. He died in 1919.”