The Long-Run Effect of Public Libraries on Children: Evidence from the Early 1900s

Abstract

Between 1890 and 1921, Andrew Carnegie funded the construction of 1,618 public libraries in cities and towns across the United States. I link these library construction grants to census data and measure the effect of childhood public library access on adult outcomes. Library construction grants increased children's educational attainment by 0.10 years, did not affect wage income, and increased non-wage income by 4%. These income effects are driven by occupational choice. Access to a public library caused children to shift away from occupations like manual labor, factory-work, and mining into safer and more prestigious occupations like farm-ownership, clerical, and technical jobs. I show that compulsory schooling laws had parallel effects on children, increasing educational attainment, non-wage income and occupational prestige without affecting wage income. Economists often rely solely on wage income to measure the returns to education. But public libraries and compulsory schooling laws in the early 1900s increased educational attainment and had positive effects on children's adult labor market outcomes without affecting wage income.