Andrew Carnegie founded the Carnegie Institute in 1895, which began as the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH). Today, these two museums are a part of the Carnegie Complex which also includes the Carnegie Science Center and the Andy Warhol Museum. Also included within the CMOA and CMNH building is the Carnegie Library's main branch and the Carnegie Music Hall, all part of Andrew Carnegie’s desire to educate and bring the world to Pittsburgh. There are approximately twenty-two million objects both in storage or on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History began with the discovery of Diplodocus carnegii in what is known today as Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. One of the state-of-the-art features at the time of the CMNH’s opening was the Westinghouse elevators with electric lights, the first of it's kind. The public would come just to take the elevators and look at the lights. The institution has expanded to include exhibits on minerals and gems, birds, plants, Native Americans, and Egypt as well as extending its collection of fossils. The permanent exhibits are organized in three categories at the CMNH: Geology & Paleontology, Wildlife & Ecology, and Anthropology. The museum’s mission is to research and maintain the collection of specimens they have in order to further the public’s knowledge of science in our world.