The Carnegie Corporation of New York is associated with the very foundations of literacy going back to the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie himself and of the Corporation in its early years. Andrew Carnegie's legacy includes over 2,500 free public libraries that he saw as a link "bridging ignorance and education." In fact, Carnegie, the man, quickly became known as the "Patron Saint of Libraries" (Wall, 1970). This paper describes the Carnegie Corporation's current literacy agenda and how it has been shaped and framed by its reading initiatives over the last 93 years.