Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

Opened alongside the Carnegie Museum of Art in 1895, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History is currently home to over twenty million objects and artifacts. Carnegie oversaw the collecting from 1895 to 1907 and it reflected his ideas of evolutionary development.

Most notably, it houses a collection of 230 dinosaur fossils—including the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex known to date—as well as exhibits such as Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems, Alcoa Foundation Hall of American Indians, and Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt. The museum's Powdermill Nature Reserve was established in 1956 to serve as a field station for long-term studies of natural populations, and now forms the core of the museum's Center for Biodiversity and Ecosystems. Research teams that included Carnegie scientists have made discoveries such as Puijila darwini and Hadrocodium wui.

Two of the Carnegie museums, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum of Art, are both located in the Carnegie Institute and Library complex in Oakland, a landmark building listed on the National Register of Historic Places (ref #79002158, added 1979). It also houses the Carnegie Music Hall and the main branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

Andrew Carnegie donated the library and the buildings. With the goal of inspiring people to do good for themselves and their communities, the terms for donations required communities to support them in exchange for the building and initial investment by Carnegie. The words "free to the people" inscribed above the entrance of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh illustrate his vision. The other two museums, The Andy Warhol Museum and the Kamin Science Center, are located in separate facilities on Pittsburgh's North Shore.