The History of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History

​The origins of natural history museums go back to the Renaissance, when the wealthy owned private collections of specimens and other relics, including some items that were replicas. In the 18th century, one of the earliest known serious collectors was Sir Hans Sloane, a physician who traveled the world collecting specimens and other artifacts that led to the founding of the United Kingdom’s Natural History Museum in 1881. By the end of the 19th century natural history museums had been established in many parts of the world, including the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) in Pittsburgh.

Today's CMNH mission has expanded considerably since its opening in 1895. The museum houses 22 million specimens and artifacts that combine the world's natural and scientific elements. Further, 10,000 specimens are typically displayed, and 1 million are in an online database. The modern-day CMNH also emphasizes inclusivity as it relates to the perspectives that are a part of the exhibits. The museum contains 20 galleries and research, library, and office space occupying 115,000 square feet. Outside of its mission of housing natural history, staff engage the community by visiting schools in western Pennsylvania.

CMNH's work is a collaboration among various disciplines. These disciplines, spanning 10 departments, work together to strategically find ways to maximize the museum's research, exhibitions, and public programming.

The history of the CMNH starts with philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who became wealthy in the steel industry. He wanted to create a museum accessible to everyone, regardless of rank or social class. An evolutionist, Carnegie was interested in paleontology, specifically dinosaurs. In Carnegie's time, paleontology expeditions had become very popular, with his scientists making a breakthrough discovery a few years after the museum opened. The museum scientists collected 400 crates of fossils for the early CMNH as part of its paleontological expeditions. Outside of dinosaurs, the museum exhibited artifacts from Ancient Egypt, beautiful minerals, and wildlife taxidermy.

At some point, the museum expanded to fund expeditions that took botanists, zoologists, anthropologists, and entomologists to the farthest parts of the planet to explore places in the Arctic and the Amazon, among others. The fauna and flora they collected helped the museum expand its collection from thousands to millions of artifacts and specimens.

The CMNH has accomplished much throughout its existence, including unearthing the Diplodocus carnegii fossils in 1899. It also found one of the planet's only juvenile fossils of the Apatosaurus, the world's first Tyrannosaurus rex, and in more recent times, an oviraptorosaur the CMNH calls Anzu wyliei. Other significant discoveries were of the Puijila darwini, Castorocauda lutrasimilis, and Hadrocodium wui. Outside of these finds, the museum also founded the Powdermill Nature Reserve in 1956. Later, it established a field station and laboratory in Rector, Pennsylvania, to enable researchers to perform long-term studies of natural populations in the state.

The museum also took 400 fossils and created the Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibit, which the CMNH is widely known for. Other notable exhibitions include the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems, the Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt, the Benedum Hall of Geology, the Alcoa Foundation Hall of American Indians, and Polar World: Wyckoff Hall of Arctic Life.

Much of the research at the CMNH is published in scholarly journals, including its own Annals of Carnegie Museum, which publishes peer-reviewed articles. Additionally, the CMNH publishes Bulletins of Carnegie Museum, a collection of symposia papers, and the Special Publications of Carnegie Museum, which publishes special topics and research.

From its start as a paleontological and artifact effort, the CMNH continues expanding to take on other missions, including its recent focus on conservation. For more information regarding the museum, please visit carnegiemnh.org.

Joel Bartsch

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