Andrew Carnegie’s museum of evolution

Abstract Carnegie Institute was established in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the great age of museum building in the United States. The institute took shape over two building programmes completed in 1895 and 1907. It comprised not only a natural history museum and art gallery but also a library and a music hall. Financed solely by Andrew Carnegie, it stood as an oddity in having no founder’s collection. Carnegie’s role has been interpreted as that of a silent financial partner who turned over creative control to others. Instead, and from the start, the natural history collection and art gallery were ideologically driven to accord with their founder’s idiosyncratic values. Carnegie Institute symbolized the thinking of philosopher Herbert Spencer and educational reformer Matthew Arnold, as absorbed and interpreted by Carnegie. The collections of palaeontology, casts, reproductions, paintings and drawings were displayed to reflect both Spencer’s concept of evolution and Arnold’s concept of anti-materialism.