Andrew Carnegie is well-known for both being a steel industry titan as well as for his philanthropic work. Les Standiford wrote the following on Carnegie’s philanthropy in his historical account of the partnership between Frick and Carnegie in Meet You in Hell:
In 1895, Carnegie dedicated the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, an imposing 300-foot-long structure made possible by a grant of $1 million. By the turn of the twentieth century, the library had become the centerpiece of the still-standing Carnegie Institute, a monument to culture that included art and science museums and a concert hall. Ultimately, Carnegie’s original $1 million investment would grow to more than $25 million (291).
Today, both the Art and Natural History museum have expanded their spaces to become a wealth of information for the public to come and visit. In the CMNH, the Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibit space was originally a courtyard meeting space where notable collectors would come to meet and look at their collections together. The courtyard of the Carnegie Institute needed to be upgraded once Diplodocus (affectionately known as Dippy) was put into the museum because he was too big to fit into the space. Dinosaur Hall was created as Dippy’s new home as well as the multitude of new fossils being discovered at Dinosaur National Monument funded by Carnegie himself. Between 1899 to 1917, Carnegie donated more than $250,000 to the Carnegie Museum “for collecting, preparing and studying dinosaurs and other fossil vertebrates” (McGinnis 23). The story of Dippy is a rather interesting one both because of him serving as an unofficial logo for the museum and his importance to Andrew Carnegie.
On December 11, 1898, Andrew Carnegie read the New York Journal with the headline “Most Colossal Animal Ever on Earth Just Found out West.” The newspaper that Andrew Carnegie read that showed what Dippy was thought to look like from his femur bone.
Carnegie wrote “Dear Chancellor, Buy this for Pittsburgh” on the article and sent it with a $10,000 check to Dr. William Holland, who was the director of CMNH at the time. Holland contacted William Reed, who discovered the colossal creature, according to the Journal article. Reed told Holland that he knew he could find fossils, but he did not know how to prepare or discover a full skeleton. Holland assured Reed by assembling a team of paleontologists from the American Museum. Holland returned to Pittsburgh with Reed’s one year contract and a single bone from Wyoming. J.L. Wortman, the American Museum’s Assistant Curator of Paleontology was persuaded to join and organize the Department of Paleontology at Carnegie Museum (McGinnis 13). Wortman and Arthur S. Coggelshaw, who were responsible for preparing the dinosaur fossils as they were found, departed from Carnegie Museum to Medicine Bow, Wyoming, where they met Reed.
After a few days of digging, Wortman and Coggeshall did not discover a single bone. Reed confessed to them that the only bone he discovered was the one he gave to Holland. Wortman and Coggeshall then realized that the Journal article was based off one bone, the diplodocus femur. Two months later, on the morning of July 4, 1899, Wortman and Coggeshall were digging thirty miles away from the original site and found a toe bone from the dinosaur’s hind foot at Sheep Creek, Wyoming. Then by noon, they also cleared the left pelvis. They determined that the dinosaur had died in the mud of an ancient lake or stream 120 million years ago. There had been little water movement, after its death, allowing the paleontologists to find the skeleton intact lying on its right side, probably the same position of how the dinosaur fell. The skeleton was identified as Diplodocus, which means “double-beamed” in Greek. In relation to the day they discovered the skeleton, Coggeshall suggested they call it the “Star Spangled Dinosaur.” Following the discovery, a telegram was sent to Holland and Carnegie. In response, the news spread and scientists from museums and universities went to “Camp Carnegie,” the new name for Sheep Creek. Once all the remains were discovered, 130 crates of bones were sent back to Pittsburgh. The scientists realized they found a new species of Diplodocus, and so they “named it Diplodocus carnegii in honor of the man who financed the expedition.” Dippy made his Pittsburgh debut in 1901 and was the first dinosaur in Dinosaur Hall, measuring 84 feet long,14 feet and 8 inches high, and estimated to have weighed about twelve tons.
One day when King Edward VII of England visited Carnegie’s Skibo Castle in Scotland, he saw a watercolor sketch of Dippy. He was the first person to ask Carnegie for a duplicate skeleton. Holland suggested that the museum could give him a copy made from plaster. It took two years for Italian plasterers to make the molds of the Diplodocus skeleton. On May 12th 1905, Carnegie presented the Diplodocus cast to the Trustees of the British Museum, including King Edward.
Many other governments followed and asked Carnegie for a copy of Dippy. In anticipation of future requests, the crew had made five additional replicas. Holland formally presented the casts to Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, President Fallieres of France, Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, and King Vittorio Emmanuele III of Italy. Holland then arranged for four more casts to be made and presented them to Czar Nicholas II of Russia, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, President Rogue Saenz Peña of Argentina, and President Emilio Porties Gil of Mexico. In 1934, a final replica of Dippy was made to be sent to Bayerische Staatssammlung für Palaontologie in Munich Germany in exchange for many European fossils. However, during World War II the records for the replica were lost. The original crates of the cast were found the in the Museum’s storage room. After the molds were traveled abroad, they were sent back to the United States and replicas stand at the Field House of Natural History in Vernal, Utah and Rocky Mount Children’s Museum in North Carolina. The Houston Museum of Natural Science in Texas also wanted the molds, but by the time the molds go to Texas, they had disintegrated with age (McGinnis 17).
Besides Diplodocus, there are two other dinosaurs that have unique histories within the CMNH collection. One of these is one of the Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils. The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York discovered this creature at Dinosaur National Monument, like Dippy. However, in 1941, the specimen was sold to George H. Clapp, a trustee of the Carnegie Museum. It was transferred to him because the AMNH feared that New York would be the victim of a bomb attack by the Germans during World War II. The Tyrannosaurus Rex that is currently on display has been shown at the CMNH since 1942. Kristine, the docent for our tour, said that even though the American Museum’s T-Rex is larger in size, ours is the holotype that all other potential T-Rex dinosaur bones are compared to when paleontologists find new skeletal remains.
Not only did Carnegie have a plethora of libraries named after himself, as well as the museum and his own music hall in New York, he also has two dinosaur species named after himself and his wife. Diplodocus carnegii is named for Mr. Carnegie and Apatosaurus louisae is named for his wife, Louise.
On August 19th, 1909, Earl Douglass found what would be later known as Apatosaurus louisae but for many years the skeleton remained headless because Holland (Pitt chancellor and CMNH director) and Osborn (director of AMNH) couldn’t agree on which skull was supposed to be on the remains. A skull was found with the excavation of Apatosaurus but it was not connected directly to the neck bones. Holland wanted to find another specimen with the head and neck connected so it could be made certain that the skull he thought was the correct one would be put on display (McGinnis 19). There was some confusion, and so the skull from the Camarasaurus fossil was instead placed upon the Apatosaurus remains and was displayed as such. Only seventy years later was it discovered that Holland had the correct skull originally. On October 20th, 1979, the real skull of Apatosaurus was finally placed on its body on Dinosaur’s Day (McGinnis 73).
While the museum is itself an archive of history, the stories that are held within the institution’s collections are also vast and unique. Appadurai explains the importance of memory in his essay Archive and Aspiration, “In this humanist perspective, . . . the archive lives, not because of its own materiality (its paper, its textures, its dust, its files, its buildings), but because of the spirit which animates these materials -- the spirit of ‘pastness’ itself” (15). Locals come to the museum to remember the collections that they have seen as children as well as to see what’s different and new. But it’s also a way to remember the past of our society and natural world and what we have discovered about it.