Dear Mr. Carnegie,

“To bring more of sweetness and light; that the child of my native town, looking back in after years will feel that … life has been made happier and better. If this be the fruit of your labours you will have succeeded; if not you will have failed.”

You wrote these words 116 years ago in your letter from Skibo, founding our Trust, and in this year of the centenary of your death, we will now attempt to reply, laying out how we have indeed tried to succeed.

There cannot be many trusts and foundations which received such clear guidelines as those contained in your three-page letter to us, or many that would turn so willingly to the words of their founder for their current reference points. Yet so it is in our case. Your letter told us to experiment, to be pioneers, to not be afraid of making mistakes, and, in that staggeringly forward-looking and trusting statement, to “try many things freely, but discard just as freely.”

How right you were. Needs change, social mores change, and economic environments fluctuate. But poverty is still with us, children still need opportunity and encouragement, older populations face social disconnection, and environmental choices impact on us all.

When we started out, we followed your lead in providing buildings (your name still remains synonymous with libraries). We bought and built children’s clinics, children’s homes, swimming baths, institutes for both men and women, and recreational, sports, crafts, music, and drama facilities for all. But buildings are costly to run and, with the introduction of national health and welfare services in the UK at the end of the 1940s, our ownership of these buildings ceased. Instead, we have moved into direct grant giving, facilitation, partnership projects, and an ethos of punching above our weight. We use your name to engage interest and commitment in pursuit of common agendas based, as ever, on the fundamental principles of need. We hope you would approve.

We have also taken liberties with the interpretation of the “child of your native town.” Greater inclusion and shifting educational and economic boundaries have broadened our reach, whilst we still give something special to your local child. In the last couple of years alone there has been a 55% increase in assisting disadvantaged school children, and a growing total of over 4,000 pupils a year enabled to participate in sport. True to “trying many things freely,” we support pilot and start-up projects in the hope they will grow and flourish, but not conditional on success as a prerequisite for support.

Also in your all-encompassing letter, you identified Pittencrieff Park as fundamental to our organization’s existence. Your pride in its purchase, and our subsequent stewardship, have been constants in our identity. Your wish to see experimentation and development of this magnificent and historic urban green space has led to controversy, debate, financial challenges, and, ultimately, the encapsulation of what green spaces in an urban environment represent. I believe you would appreciate the passion that the park has engendered and perhaps some of the irony that, whilst in 1904 Patrick Geddes’ ambitious proposals for the park were rejected by trustees, they are now seen as innovative and relevant, and they form the basis of international study. By degrees, we are working towards your goal of a recreation space for the people. The Glen Pavilion, new café, and fully inclusive play parks, together with all the open spaces, are nationally recognised and fully used and appreciated all year round. The mansion house, with its double link to Pittsburgh through yourself and John Forbes, is now in the spotlight of opportunity.

In 1908, you added the British-based Hero Fund to our responsibilities. In contrast to our more local work, the Hero Fund takes us across the whole of the UK, Ireland, and Channel Isles. You said the Hero Fund movement was your “ain bairn” (own child), something special and personal to your beliefs. You had already founded the Hero Fund Commission in Pittsburgh, but only we started with a beautifully inscribed Roll of Honour, which today bears moving witness to the nearly 7,000 individuals recognised. Sadly, the majority of these inscriptions are posthumous and, whilst the nature of incidents has changed somewhat with the times, the consistent element of selfless humanity remains throughout. The ongoing support provided to families through the Hero Fund has meant that contact has been maintained, in some cases, for over sixty years — a practice we are proud to continue.

During your lifetime, your wife, Louise, had purchased the cottage in Dunfermline where you were born, to ensure the preservation of its significance. After 1919, she provided the funding to build the art deco hall which, together with the cottage, now make up the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum. Like you, she did not hesitate in her belief that our trustees would manage this area of work, completing our tripartite responsibilities that continue today.

Louise wanted us to tell your story, providing an example of what success can look like, as well as the impact of your international philanthropy, and how others might be encouraged to follow in your footsteps. For some decades we did not value the role of the museum and its potential worldwide voice as we might have, but the establishment of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy changed all of that. The greater awareness of the combined voice of all the Carnegie institutions has prompted the museum to revisit the ways in which it tells your story. Your valuing of education, peace, science, entrepreneurship, economic development, and so much more is now conveyed in ways relevant to all ages. Perhaps most significant of all is your living, breathing, and influential philanthropic legacy, one hundred years after your death.

You once said, “There is little success where there is little laughter.” Fun and interactive engagement are powerful tools for sharing timeless messages and fresh ideas. As part of the many events of this centenary, your diplodocus replica from London journeyed to Glasgow, providing us with a topical and humorous platform to illustrate so much of your legacy — the shared assembling of a bright red Dippy the Dinosaur in the Birthplace Museum from over 35,000 pieces of Lego. We are certain you would have enjoyed being part of this collective design challenge.

Finally, toward the end of your life, you commissioned a beautiful window from Tiffany Studios in New York as a memorial to your family, to be installed in Dunfermline’s historic Abbey. Your reaction when the Abbey authorities rejected the window as not being religious enough was not recorded, but the window then embarked on an eventful and itinerant life, being stored for some years under your baths in Dunfermline, then in the new Carnegie Hall, and, finally, here in our headquarters when they were built in 2007. In what seems a most fitting end to the first centenary of your legacy and the beginning of the next, your wishes were fulfilled in August 2019, when the window was installed
in the location you chose.

Have we succeeded? Maybe not always in the ways you anticipated or the ways we would have wished; but we have tried, and, in your own words, we hope you will be “well assured” that we will continue to try to the best of our ability.

Your Trustees of Carnegie Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trusts

Dear Mr. Carnegie,

It is with great pride that I write you on this 115th anniversary of the first meeting of the Hero Fund Commission. I am pleased to report that this most venerable institution, which you considered your own child, created to serve and celebrate the better angels of mankind, has endured and thrived. You once referred to the Hero Fund as the “noblest fund in the world.” After giving more than 10,000 Carnegie Medals for heroism, and nearly $41 million in support for heroes and dependents, our work to honor the true heroes of our society goes on, having proven time and again the noble truths of your insights and the enduring value of your gift.

Beyond the medals and the support that you demanded for heroes and kin so that they “not suffer,” the work of the Hero Fund has unraveled the mysteries of the acts and actors impacting our society, as well as the hearts of those who have struggled, overcome, and endured by elevating the value of another’s life beyond their own. We have seen that, in all cases, as you seemed to fully understand over a hundred years ago, the hope that has come to those in peril, in the faces of strangers and friends, has been as the presence of angels. Whether lives were saved, or lost, or changed, the hero has imparted hope to the hopeless. Heroes can be considered saviors in a sense for all of us who have witnessed what they did for others, often for strangers. This you recognized early on in the person of “young Hunter” of Dunfermline, and in those who braved the fire and smoke of the Harwick mine. It still exists today in the hearts and minds of the rescuers and victims who have locked eyes in fearsome, and often final, moments.

After giving more than 10,000 Carnegie Medals for heroism, and nearly $41 million in support for heroes and dependents, our work to honor the true heroes of our society goes on, having proven time and again the noble truths of your insights and the enduring value of your gift.

Every one of the Carnegie heroes the fund has recognized personifies that invaluable, God-given trait that you cherished most, and we cherish still: simply that they loved another enough to risk, and in many cases sacrifice, their own lives to try to save them. As purveyors of selflessness, hope, and equality, they represent the possibility for a more peaceful world if, as an ideal, their actions are taken into the hearts of the many, who then do likewise by putting others first.

The fund has provided much-needed support for disabled heroes and for those from whom heroes were taken away, many times far too soon, as a result of their selflessness. As you had hoped, there have been many “exceptional children” for whom the fund has made “exceptional education” a reality. It has soothed the wounds these heroes bear, both visible and unseen. And in all it has done, the fund continues to herald the selfless acts of the heroes among us, for our time and for future generations.

You once said that “the whole idea” of your Hero Fund was contained in the poem “In the Time of Peace” by your good friend Richard Watson Gilder. Its beautiful words ring as true now as they did more than a century ago:
A civic hero, in the calm realm of laws,
Did that which suddenly drew a world’s applause;
And one to the pest his lithe young body gave
That he a thousand thousand lives might save.

We rejoice in all of the good that you have done these many years through your gift of the Hero Fund Commission and those hero funds that followed and still thrive. As we look forward to the future heroes yet to join the rolls of honor, we can only offer thanks and hope that your words to the fund’s first president in 1905 yet ring true: “You have made a start, and there is to be no finish. It goes on forever.” And if it takes forever to find the one millionth “civic hero” and reach the time of peace you dreamed of, I hope and expect that the fund will press on until he or she is found and recognized. For as you knew and taught us, peace will start in the heart of someone who decides to gift it to another in desperate need of it, then build as the many spread it to the world, equally desperate, one heart at a time.

This is my pledge, on behalf of the devoted staff and board of the Hero Fund Commission, who are proud to continue this great work in your name. What you have done has indeed drawn, as Gilder noted, the “world’s applause” for those you called “true heroes of civilization.”

Respectfully,

Eric P. Zahren

President

Dear Mr. Carnegie,

When I entered the magnificent Peace Palace, full of engagement to give it my all to promote world peace, little did I know about how you made this impressive building, a beacon for the world, possible. Once appointed, I quickly learnt more about your remarkable life and your vision. I will not get into too much detail about the holistic nature of your vision on the evolving of humankind towards peace, supported by education and science; on the role of individuals, and more specifically the role of leaders, philanthropists, and heroes; and, eventually, the importance of books and the wisdom they contain for human development. Let me just share with you that I became more and more impressed, and humbled at the same time, since it is now up to us to take your legacy into its second century. The challenges we face are hardly less than during your day.

As I started reading about the origins of the Peace Palace that I have the privilege to manage, together with the Board of the Carnegie Foundation Peace Palace and our nearly 50 colleagues, I came across the deed by which you created the Foundation for the purpose of, in your words, “establishing and maintaining in perpetuity … [a] Temple of Peace.” You considered the creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration inside this Palace “the most important step forward of a worldwide humanitarian character which has ever been taken by the joint Powers, as it must ultimately banish war.” Your analysis was so true. But a century later, we are not there yet.

So I regularly look back to your words as a source of inspiration. Given your ideas on education and peace, you insisted that a standard library of international law be based at the Peace Palace, too. You established that this Peace Palace Library should also be maintained in perpetuity, and committed the Dutch government to that end.

Even with your strong belief in technology, you might not believe how a technology that could not be foreseen in your lifetime currently impacts this same library a century beyond its conception. In our day and age, the sharing of information primarily takes place through what you would probably see as a virtual reality, a global web of machines connected both by cables and wireless, giving access to the most diverse sources of information to people all around the world who can afford the technology and the tools.

This technology is considered by some a reason why this library would now become redundant. Those who, together with you, believe in the importance of the book, and understand the work of lawyers and academics, realise that books will always be the primary source for sharing knowledge and insights, even more so for the judges and the arbitrators who have to study all relevant resources to develop and underpin their awards. Therefore, no matter what form a book may take in the future, we struggle peacefully but diligently to maintain this crucial facility, the knowledge infrastructure you created for promoting peace through law.

To date, we are working hard every day to promote world peace and banish war. Yet even after terrible carnage in the past century, we still experience warfare on our planet, and we even see tensions rising again 100 years after you left us. Powers do not act so jointly at present. We sometimes experience feelings of despair, as you did when you were deeply troubled and disappointed during the last years of your life, as the Great War broke out after the Peace Palace opened its doors, and the spirit of idealism and hope quickly faded. But it never disappeared.

You lived to see the Armistice, and you may have hoped that lessons would be drawn: such wars never again. Lessons were learnt indeed, and shortly after you passed away, international powers were effectively joined when the League of Nations was established in 1920 to work towards world peace.

The nations recognised the wisdom that prevailed in the era in which you facilitated the erection of the Peace Palace: to promote peace through law. In order to settle conflicts peacefully, the League of Nations decided to add the instrument of jurisdiction to the instrument of arbitration. A second court was installed: the Permanent International Court of Justice. Of course, the first president of the Carnegie Foundation, Mr. van Karnebeek, with whom you opened its doors, was happy to also host this court at the Palace. With international arbitration and jurisdiction, the pathways for peace were laid, and they led to the Peace Palace.

In essence, since you initiated the Carnegie Foundation Peace Palace, we are here to make peace. It’s in our genes. A century beyond our founding, we still facilitate peace through law successfully. And we are adding peace through dialogue.

His successor, Mr. Cort van der Linden, wholeheartedly approved of another idea that was born during the Hague Peace Conferences when the first court was initiated: international law as the means to settle conflicts peacefully should be studied and taught as well. Education in peace through law — how well would that notion fit your vision? An academy for international law was to be initiated, and it is Dutch Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tobias Asser to whom we must give credit. He, together with your Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington, D.C., established The Hague Academy of International Law, and made sure this academy would also be based at the Peace Palace. Thus, the learning infrastructure for peace through law was available as well at the heart of your legacy.

It was a real pleasure, in my second capacity as Treasurer of this Academy, to allow for another program. In 2019, in addition to the renowned summer courses, a new course was started: winter courses in both public and private international law. As of this year, 1,000 bright young students are educated annually as lawyers and diplomats to work towards peaceful relations between states. Your League of Peace, as you called it in your Rectorial address at St. Andrews, is expanding every year.

Incredible as it may seem, war did happen again. The Great War would later be labeled the First World War, as mankind experienced a Second World War some 20 years later, not even halfway through the twentieth century. Could men treat men even worse than during the Great War? Yes, men could. And, unfortunately, it turns out in various places of the world that men still do.

Given its lack of success, after the Second World War the League of Nations was dissolved, and was replaced by another worldwide intergovernmental organisation for cooperation towards peace: the United Nations. Once again, it was decided that the principal judicial body for peaceful settlement of conflicts between states should be based here, at the Peace Palace: the International Court of Justice, a principal organ mentioned in the Charter of the United Nations, now also called the World Court.

It was during this period, after the Second World War ended, that idealism was on the rise again. Human rights for all men and women were even declared as a legal basis for human advancement. Since then, international law has developed tremendously as an invaluable source to settle conflicts peacefully in all kinds of areas. There are global conventions on children’s rights and cultural rights; conventions for international commerce; and for health, labour, and social rights. That is deeply satisfying and encouraging. Grotius would have been proud, and I guess you, too.

In order to make peace, more hearings and events take place at the Peace Palace than ever before. Your appeal to the reason of men has been heard. “Law not war” is the motto on a bench recently placed outside the Peace Palace.

We have hosted so many cases in which conflicts have been dealt with successfully. And we don’t even know how many battles have been prevented here, but our courts have dealt with the big issues of every decade. We are grateful for every human life saved because of cases settled peacefully at the Peace Palace. As a consequence of the many cases that are taking place currently, and because older, possibly hazardous materials used in building the Peace Palace should be replaced, renovation is needed to meet current and future demands. This renovation forces us to address fundamental questions: is the host country still committed to recognising and supporting the Carnegie Foundation? If not, what should our role be? What should our strategy be? You encouraged your heirs to act as we see fit. But I would have loved to have you as a sparring partner to deal with these questions.

In all honesty, we did not do everything right during the last century. Unlike fellow Carnegie institutions, we have not kept a financial buffer for maintaining and developing the Peace Palace. Instead, after the budget you so graciously provided for the building of the Peace Palace was exhausted, we relied on the commitment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Dutch government has generously supported our cause for many decades. We recently realised that this dependence entails risks with a view to our mission and our position. We have become vulnerable. So we have to reach out to the likes of you to join our cause and continue the quest for peace together. Will there be an Andrew Carnegie in our time to finance world peace through law, including sustaining the Peace Palace?

As we are acquiring new skills to develop partnerships for peace, we are fortunate to have various Carnegie institutions with complementary missions with whom to exchange experiences and views. We owe it to the current President of Carnegie Corporation of New York, Vartan Gregorian, that he brought your institutions together again. It is great to experience how the family of Carnegie institutions is with us on our joint mission. When I was in New York for the very first time, meeting colleagues from throughout the world at the amazing Carnegie Hall, I was excited not just to attend the wonderful concert there, but also to meet these great minds and learn about so many impressive initiatives covering the whole breadth of your legacy.

Following a spontaneous plea to join hands in promoting peace, we are taking your legacy to the next level by cooperating more intensely. Just last year we held the very first Carnegie PeaceBuilding Conversations in your Peace Palace. It was inspiring. We launched partnerships for peace, and received wide support to organise dialogues with all kinds of partners to address the root causes of conflicts. Our job will remain the prevention of warfare, carnage, and the loss of human lives. And we do so with many more partners now.

You once said that the peaceful development of nations is their most profitable policy. You will no doubt be happy to learn about the most recent joint initiative of nations. The United Nations has agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals — specific goals to end poverty, hunger, and inequality. There are ambitious plans to enhance education, public health, and sustainable production and consumption. This program is probably by far the most ambitious global program to eradicate root causes of conflicts and develop new avenues toward peace.

We at the Peace Palace focus on a specific goal from this program: peace, justice, and stronger institutions. That is our core business. We are going to facilitate dialogues to promote stronger international institutions to reach these important goals.

For us here in The Hague, now the legal capital of the world, and, as home to the Peace Palace, the international city of peace and justice, it is an honour to follow in your footsteps and try to deliver peace and justice in our day and age. Yet we realise that arbitration and jurisdiction are crucial, but not sufficient. We need to add mediation and dialogue as instruments to settle complex issues peacefully and structurally, so we are laying the foundations for pathways to peace for the century ahead of us.

In essence, since you initiated the Carnegie Foundation Peace Palace, we are here to make peace. It’s in our genes. A century beyond our founding, we still facilitate peace through law successfully. And we are adding peace through dialogue. Together with the members of the Carnegie family of institutions and other partners, we create and support great events at a unique location in the world. This is how we bring people together and inspire them to make a change in as many human lives as possible. And we aim to develop more and more partnerships to work together towards world peace.

Thanks to you, Mr. Carnegie, we provide and maintain a tangible place of hope. We facilitate peace in action every day.

You believed that the world takes on a brighter radiance from the day the Temple of Peace opens its doors. We take pride in providing this ray of light to the people. There is hope for the entire world; peace is doable.

With warm regards,

Erik de Baedts

Director

Dear Mr. Carnegie,

When you established the Carnegie Institution for Science, you laid a foundation for generations of intellectually fearless researchers whose independence has empowered them to seek — and speak — the truth. For decades, we have appreciated your foresight as we have watched national funding for basic scientific research wax and wane due to political and fiscal considerations. Today, our institutional responsibility to take risks and address crucial problems in novel ways is greater than ever, as Carnegie scientists join our colleagues around the world in the urgent struggle to understand and battle the existential threat of climate change. So, as we confront the overwhelming scale and peril of this crisis, we remember your belief in the power of public education, your steadfast support of discovery science, and your constant advocacy for world peace, and we ask ourselves: What would Andrew Carnegie do?

Your life and work would make you uniquely qualified to provide leadership and to offer warnings. In ways both direct and subtle, the present climate crisis is rooted in the technological revolution that you helped generate. It is inarguable that your vision of an American economy built on steel — and on the coal used to produce that steel — set the world on a course that has led to ever-increasing consumption of coal and petroleum and emission of carbon dioxide. Yet you and the corporate titans who were your peers — John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Ford — could have had no notion of the massive, unintended environmental consequences of your ambitions. You yourself were an outspoken champion of conservation in your time, speaking out on the need to preserve our nation’s forests and to improve the quality of our freshwater resources. You stood alongside President Theodore Roosevelt and pioneering environmentalist Gifford Pinchot at a massive national conference designed to raise awareness of the devastating impacts of industry on our land, water, forests, and air. I have no doubt that, were you with us today, you would be a leading voice in the worldwide call for immediate action to halt our heedless emission of greenhouse gases.

More obliquely, we are grappling with the less tangible legacy of your extraordinary success in transforming the face of this nation and the world. In the United States of your childhood, horses drew streetcars down narrow avenues and pulled wagons filled with heavy freight from railroad terminals to shops and factories. With millions of horses at work in municipalities across the United States and Europe, city leaders were faced with the seemingly intractable problem of providing effective, hygienic disposal of horse manure and horse carcasses. Tens of thousands of human deaths each year were attributed to horse waste in New York alone. As human and horse populations increased, the future livability of horse-powered cities seemed doubtful. Then came automobiles, fueled by (apparently) clean-burning gasoline, along with a powerful new electrical grid. Our cities were transformed within a generation, rendering the “horse problem” obsolete. Is it any wonder that so many people maintain an outsized belief in the power of some as-yet-unknown technology to reverse climate change quickly and painlessly, without any need for change or sacrifice on our parts? Calling on your own experience, you could remind the overly optimistic public that the apparently sudden shift to a new energy economy in your lifetime was founded on many, many years of research and experimentation. You also could make clear that averting the pending climate catastrophe will require massive technological breakthroughs that are more complex, by orders of magnitude, than those considered revolutionary in your lifetime.

As we seek ever more urgently for ways to bring people together to fight climate change, I ponder what you would think about the role of public education in preparing us — or in failing to prepare us — to meet this crisis. It is troubling that so many Americans seem deeply suspicious of the scientific community. Whether we are discussing the safety and efficacy of vaccinations or the terrifying impacts of increasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere, we are countered by anti-science contrarians who question both our methods and our motives. In statehouses and school districts around our country, standard science education has been condemned as a partisan tool, and researchers whose work has been completely discredited continue to be cited as “experts” by those who either truly do not understand scientific discourse or who feign ignorance for their own purposes. We desperately need a strong and trusted voice like your own to speak out on behalf of straightforward science education and to bring a level of rationality to these barbed debates. We also could benefit from your insights into the great value, and the great dangers, of the internet, whose hidden corners provide instant access to junk science and conspiracy theories. In a world in which we can find a self-anointed online expert to buttress almost any position, it is difficult to balance the indisputable good of democratic access to information with the potential harms caused by misinformation — especially misinformation that is disseminated for malicious purposes. As we consider the great legacy of the Carnegie Free Libraries, which made self-directed education accessible for millions of Americans, it would be useful to hear your advice on how we might better equip people to sift fact from fallacy, and how we can best use this extraordinary platform to extend, rather than undermine, your purpose of promoting “the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.”

Today, as Carnegie Institution researchers seek to unlock the secrets hidden within the stars and planets — including our own Earth — you would challenge us to share our unbridled excitement about science in all its forms, and you would charge us to fling open the doors of every scientific discipline to welcome a diverse, vibrant cohort of scientists that looks like the nation we seek to serve, educate, and inspire.

I am sure that your assessment of the present crisis would not spare scientists, either. When you founded the organization that has evolved into the Carnegie Institution for Science, you purposefully forged powerful links between the worlds of science and politics. At your direction, our first board of trustees included the President of the United States, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, as well as the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and the president of the National Academy of Sciences. You understood that the revolutionary potential of science can be unleashed only in partnership with government, and with the enthusiastic support of the people. Over the past decades, many of us in the scientific community have grown so tightly focused on our work that we have often neglected our duty to reach out to the larger community. Enthusiastic about our own research and optimistic about its future impacts, we thought we could let our work speak for itself; or, perhaps anxious that laypeople would not support science for its own sake, we withdrew into ivory towers in the hope that we could avoid public scrutiny. In retrospect, we needed your reminder that the human passion for science knows no political party, and that pure science has the power to inspire and unite. When you joined forces with the visionary astrophysicist George Ellery Hale to build the world’s most powerful telescopes, you didn’t seek to justify your immense investment on pragmatic grounds; although you knew that great science leads ineluctably to great technology, you also understood the sheer inspirational value of reaching ever further toward the stars. Today, as Carnegie Institution researchers seek to unlock the secrets hidden within the stars and planets — including our own Earth — you would challenge us to share our unbridled excitement about science in all its forms, and you would charge us to fling open the doors of every scientific discipline to welcome a diverse, vibrant cohort of scientists that looks like the nation we seek to serve, educate, and inspire.

More than anything else, you would require us to raise our voices about climate change, which is one of the greatest threats to world peace that this planet has ever known. It is terrifying to watch humanity’s torpor in the face of global warming, as we turn our heads away from the reality that we may be a few short decades away from a manmade mass-extinction event. In your life, you had no greater priority than peace, and you would have foreseen the coming horror of endless wars sparked by drought, famine, and pestilence. Today you would stand up and demand immediate action from leaders in every sector, calling together elected officials and captains of industry around the world to create a bold, effective plan and then to put that plan into uncompromising action.

I know that you would feel a fierce pride in the Carnegie Institution for Science’s leadership in climate science. You would applaud our research on coral reefs, which underscores the importance of these diverse ecosystems, both in terms of the thousands of species of fish and plant life that reefs support and of the millions of human beings whose livelihoods depend on coral fishing and tourism. You would recognize that these fragile coral communities serve as canaries in a coal mine, and you would hasten to warn the world that the devastation of our coral reefs signals our own impending doom.

You would remind us that one of your earliest investments in science, the Carnegie Desert Botanical Laboratory in Arizona, was created in 1903 to help us understand the important ways in which plants adapt to extreme environments. Your visionary establishment of that pioneering desert laboratory brought together an early community of leading plant scientists who went on to help establish the Ecological Society of America. Today, Carnegie plant researchers are continuing this crucial line of research by investigating the intricate molecular genetic mechanisms that enable plants to sense water availability and survive stressful conditions, such as drought and high salinity. By working to better understand drought response, and to find ways to make plants more resilient, our researchers are proving the enduring value of the mission you set for this institution: “To encourage, in the broadest and most liberal manner, investigation, research, and discovery and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind.”

But even as you encouraged us in our present work, you would continue to sound the alarm about the perils of increasing temperatures, extreme weather, and rising seas. You would remind us that our Institution’s independence gives us both the freedom and the responsibility to speak out about our findings, even when other voices in the scientific community are muted by political opposition and willful denial. You would personally storm the White House and the halls of Congress, reminding our leaders of their duty to support American ingenuity and insisting on the funding levels necessary to conduct unfettered climate research and to develop carbon-free energy sources and reliable, affordable energy storage systems. You would bring scientists and government officials together to craft evidence-based policies that will create effective incentives for utilities and consumers to shift away from dependence on fossil fuels and embrace a new energy future. Through your support and your own example, you would call on us to be fearless, just as you were.

Perhaps most importantly, you would give us hope. Your belief in the power of hope shaped your entire life. As a pragmatist, you would acknowledge the enormity of these challenges, which require us to work together on an international scale and quickly pursue effective scientific energy solutions that will save our planet while we still can. But at the same time, I believe that you would persist in a belief that, as humans, our power to amend equals our power to destroy. You would remind us of the exceptional Carnegie scientists whose brilliance has transformed our understanding of our world, and you would assure us that, when bold and brilliant researchers are faced with an urgent mission, they will rise to meet the challenge and find solutions on an unprecedented scale.

Mr. Carnegie, we know what you would do today, because we remember what you did in your own lifetime. So now we must strive to follow your example, fulfill the mission you set for us, and work with even greater passion and focus to change — and save — the world.

Respectfully,

Eric D. Isaacs

President

Dear Mr. Carnegie,

In 1901, as the very first step of your avowed mission to give away the recently realised proceeds of the sale of your steel company, you generously endowed to the four universities of Scotland and their students a hugely significant sum. The idea that, one hundred years later, Scotland would be home to fifteen universities, plus a further three institutions of higher education, would have seemed extraordinary to you at that time. Nonetheless, by the end of the twentieth century, that was where we stood. And there is no doubt that this and subsequent progress can be seen as being, in no small part, a result of your benefaction.

In the course of that first century, the Scottish universities, while increasing in number, gained an impressive international reputation for education and research and, on the basis of numerous measures, continue to be regarded as punching significantly above their weight. There is no question that the resources provided through the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland contributed greatly to this development — particularly in the early days when government funding to universities was very modest. Buildings, libraries, and laboratories carrying the name Carnegie bear testament to just some of the initiatives made possible through the funding you provided.

At the same time, and we know very close to your heart, nearly 70,000 students have been supported in their undergraduate studies, most of whom would not have attended university without the financial assistance that the Trust has provided. Including other grants, such as vacation scholarships, over £14 million has been distributed to students in the Scottish universities since our founding.

Alongside student support, the Trust has contributed to the construction of lecture theatres, libraries, and student residences; funded chairs, lectureships, research fellowships, and PhD scholarships; and awarded research and publication grants — to a total of nearly £50 million.

To summarise, we can report that the overall total of £64 million that, since 1901, has been distributed in grants to the universities of Scotland and their students, when translated into present day values, comes close to £500 million. This remains a pretty good return on your original investment of £2 million. And we are still going strong after 118 years!

Inevitably, much has changed over time, as indeed you expected. Whereas in your day only about one percent of the population went to university, now up to fifty percent undertake higher education studies — an achievement that we are confident you would applaud. This growth in educational opportunities and research activities has had a profound effect on the whole university sector. We have been continually grateful for the foresight and flexibility you emphasised in your original Trust Deed, and which became enshrined in the subsequent Royal Charters, under the most recent version of which we continue to operate. You will be pleased to hear that much of the original wording, as written by you in 1901, remains in our governance documentation.

Besides the more than four-fold increase in the number of higher education institutions in Scotland, and even greater growth in student numbers, the most significant change has been the payment, from public taxation, of student tuition fees. The introduction of government support for students in 1948 saw the beginning of a considerable fall in applications to the Trust under your Clause B expenditure heading: Tuition Fee Assistance. Exercising the flexibility afforded us in your Trust Deed, expenditure was shifted towards the more general support of university facilities and staff. The evolution in public funding culminated with free higher education being introduced across the UK in 1962, including the provision of means-tested maintenance grants. The financial barrier preventing students from attending university, which you hoped to overcome by creating the Trust, was effectively removed, leaving us free to consider other means by which we could deliver that part of your mission. Examples of new student support programs that we have introduced include vacation scholarships permitting undergraduates to undertake summer research projects ahead of their final year of study, and fee bursaries for taught master’s degrees.

Coming up to date, and following a few policy oscillations, the Scottish Government (yes, there is such a body nowadays!) is ensuring that tuition fees are paid on behalf of students in Scotland for up to five years of undergraduate study. This leaves the Trust acting in a reserve capacity for those special cases in which students either fall outside the government’s eligibility rules or have used their full entitlement. Commonly, we pay tuition fees for students who, for various — often difficult personal — reasons, have had to discontinue their degree studies before restarting later. Sometimes these fresh starts also give students an opportunity to think again about the subject area that best suits them and their career ambitions. We help them to move forward.

The second factor leading a student to seek our assistance to pay their fees can relate to immigrant status. Whilst some students may have completed their high school education in Scotland and lived here for a number of years, they may fall outside the government’s funding eligibility. Here we can step in — sometimes supporting the families of asylum seekers (in conjunction with a scholarship from their university). We like to think that your own experience arriving in America at the age of thirteen, keen to seek out opportunities to educate yourself wherever possible, would ensure your enthusiastic support for such a use of the funds you have placed at our disposal.

Another major change over the last century, which may surprise you, has been the expansion of research in universities across the UK. Recognising, as you did, its huge importance for the growth of industry, the development of business, and the advancement of culture and society, government agencies in Scotland, the UK and internationally, as well as industry, now provide large sums of money for research in the Scottish universities. Whereas, when you created our Trust, the funding it could provide made a very significant contribution in this area — leading to the creation of an excellent university research base with an outstanding worldwide reputation — our role has, in many respects, been overtaken by these other funders. Our resources cannot compare with these bodies, but nonetheless, we continue to provide an important function by awarding relatively modest research grants to academics at the earlier stages of their university careers. These grants permit lecturers and research fellows an opportunity to explore new areas of research to the benefit of their own career development and their universities, and often lead to the initiation of important new lines of study.

We also assist the development of research careers through the award of Carnegie PhD Scholarships, which are extremely prestigious and highly competitive. Candidates who receive these awards are hugely talented young people and can be expected to achieve great things. Just one past example is Alexander Todd, who was a Carnegie PhD Scholar 1928 to 1931. He went on to receive the 1957 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and, subsequently, as Baron Todd of Trumpington, became Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde (one of Scotland’s “newer” universities). We are also proud to record that John Boyd Orr, who received a series of grants from the Trust from 1907 to 1912 in support of his medical studies at the University of Glasgow, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1949 — an outcome we are sure you would applaud.

On the subject of successful careers, we frequently quote your invitation to students to repay, should circumstances permit in later life, the grants that they received from the Trust. As you said in your letter to Lord Elgin on 7th June 1901, “I hope the Trustees will gladly welcome such payments, if offered, as this will enable such students, as prefer to do so, to consider the payments made on their account merely as advances which they resolve to repay, if ever in a position to do so.” You will be pleased to hear that a total exceeding £600,000 has been paid back to the Trust to date, permitting us to support more students over the years.

In addition, your words, together with the impact that our grants have had on the careers of recipients, have led to a number of large donations, including legacies. These have totalled £2.5 million. Converting all these different types of donations into current-day values leads to an overall total of £7.6 million — a powerful demonstration of the esteem in which your Trust is held. Building on this success, the trustees are keen to attract further financial support in this manner so as to extend the work we can do for the further benefit of both students and the universities in Scotland.

Since 2005, the Trust has been based in a stylish new building — opened by HRH The Princess Royal (Princess Anne) — in your home city of Dunfermline. Our offices look out onto Pittencrieff Park, which you so generously donated for the use of the population of the city. Currently on a shelf inside our office is a thank-you card that we recently received. It is addressed to the trustees and reads:
“I wanted to take the opportunity to express my heartfelt appreciation for your support with my course fees and continued financial assistance. It has made a huge difference to my son and I and allowed me to focus on being a mum and achieving my goals. Thank you will never be enough.”

On the facing page, in a more juvenile script, is written:
“Thank you for believing in my Mum”.

We are honoured to be able to join the great number of people who have benefited from your farsighted creation of the Trust in expressing our own thanks.

Yours most sincerely,

Professor Dame Anne Glover DBE, FRS, PRSE

Chair, Board of Trustees

Professor Andrew Walker FRSE

Secretary and Treasurer

Dear Mr. Carnegie,

Your last visit here was on October 29, 1914, just three months after the start of World War I — a war you had worked hard, but in vain, to prevent. You and Mrs. Carnegie spent the day with Carnegie Tech students, enjoying their creations in metal and print shops and praising their performances in the just-opened School of Drama. To Carnegie Tech students that day, you were a combination of patron saint, role model, and rock star. You were the Pittsburgh boy who made it bigger than anyone, and they listened intently to your advice: “Don’t think so much about money and success; focus instead on using your new knowledge and skill to make a contribution. Make life better for your family, your city, your country, and yourself. You are here to make an impact for good on the world around you.”

One hundred years after your death, your ideals resonate more than ever.

In 1900, when you decided to create a university of your own, you were committed to establishing a beacon of inclusive opportunity, a technical school to educate the sons and daughters of factory workers. You had a vision for an institution that would serve as an engine of economic development in Pittsburgh, the city where you made your fortune, one that brought a focus on hands-on learning as well as applied problem solving relevant to the needs of industry. You famously assured the mayor of Pittsburgh, “my heart is in the work” — a phrase that the new school took as its motto and that remains part of our culture to this day.

You might be surprised to learn that the Pittsburgh technical school you founded is ranked among the top research universities of the world, with 19 Nobel Prize winners among its faculty and graduates and more than 112,000 alumni making a profound global impact. Yet despite expansions, reinventions, new names, and new programs and locations on five continents, Carnegie Mellon is, to a remarkable extent, still shaped by your founding vision.

The world you knew in 1900 was on the verge of great change, and your school has had to change too, more than once. In 1905, you had the vision to bring creativity and industry together by establishing the School of Fine and Applied Arts within the Carnegie Technical Schools. (It would become the College of Fine Arts in 1921.) In 1912, the institution changed again to become the Carnegie Institute of Technology, with the power to grant four-year degrees in fields such as applied industry and science. Our willingness to evolve to meet the needs of a changing society continued well into the twentieth century, when Carnegie Tech merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research in 1967 to become Carnegie Mellon University, a comprehensive research institution. Today, in surveying our diverse academic landscape, you would love seeing the scientists, engineers, and practitioners like those who first made Carnegie Tech famous, and you would feel equal affection for the artists, humanists, and social scientists who contribute so much to CMU’s intellectual and cultural life.

Pennsylvania’s steel industry, the source of your wealth, is far smaller than at its peak, but you’d be excited to know that the city of Pittsburgh is well on its way to leading a significant resurgence in manufacturing — this time using technology to make things in a whole new way. And true to your hopes, CMU is now, more than ever, a generator of fresh economic opportunity for the region. Some of the world’s most well-known companies have opened offices and created jobs in the city, drawn by the talent that CMU generates. Indeed, nearly three decades after Pittsburgh was almost written off as a place whose glory days were gone, this city has become a hub for the new economy and a model for other cities. CMU has played a central role in this revival.

In honor of your mother and her belief in education, you made sure that education for women was part of the school’s mission from the beginning. You would be delighted to know that today, women make up half of our undergraduate population and represent nearly 50 percent of our first-year classes in both the Tepper School of Business and the School of Computer Science, and 43 percent of the College of Engineering. These percentages are two to three times the national average for women in those fields. And almost from the very beginning, we also welcomed international students — immigrants like you and me. Today, one in five undergraduates and more than half of our graduate students come from outside the United States. Far fewer come from western Pennsylvania these days, which might disappoint but not surprise you, considering CMU’s international reputation as well as the economic changes across the globe during the past century.

As you envisioned, CMU remains a strong partner with industry in preparing young people for career opportunities, but more than that, companies frequently engage with us to solve real-world problems and create new knowledge. This started early in our history when pervasive interest in human behavior inspired Carnegie Tech to establish the Division of Applied Psychology in 1916, which helped local businesses place people in the right jobs. Throughout our history, we have continued to leverage close collaboration with external partners to inspire new innovations in research and education. At the same time, the university supports a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, with faculty and students creating dozens of companies of their own every year — more than 300 in the last decade.

You were well known for seeking out the most recent technological innovation to improve business efficiency. You would be amazed at where technology has taken us today, and the leading role your namesake university has played in this journey. In particular, the application of information technology to problems in many fields has been core to our research since the first computer arrived on our campus in 1956. At a time when computers were barely understood, we were among the very first to recognize the power of computing, and we made some big bets. In 1965, we established our department of computer science. In 1979, we founded the first robotics institute at a U.S. university. And in 1988, we announced the first college in the world devoted solely to computer science.

“Don’t think so much about money and success; focus instead on using your new knowledge and skill to make a contribution. Make life better for your family, your city, your country, and yourself. You are here to make an impact for good on the world around you.”

Ours is the model that other universities follow, and the paradigm-shifting advancements developed here have had an immeasurable impact. Today, CMU is a world leader in computer science and artificial intelligence, fields that were pioneered on our campus by legends like Allen Newell, Herb Simon, Alan Perlis, and Raj Reddy. Moreover, throughout the past 50 years, Carnegie Mellon has been at the forefront of innovation in this increasingly information-driven society, creating entirely new fields of inquiry, such as machine learning, transition design, decision science, computational biology, and the science of learning. You would especially appreciate our leadership at the intersection of technology and the humanities, with economists, philosophers, and policy analysts studying the effects of these emerging technologies on society and the economy, and what they could mean, positive and negative, for equality of opportunity, liberty, and democracy.

Your school has embraced innovation in its educational approaches while setting new national and international standards, especially when it comes to interdisciplinary exploration. In the 1940s, we redefined engineering education with the Carnegie Plan, which required science and engineering students to take courses in humanities and social sciences to better understand the needs of society. I also think you would have been intrigued by the Graduate School of Industrial Administration that was created in 1949 as a brand-new kind of business school forged from interdisciplinary collaboration between economists, social scientists, and applied mathematicians. This new approach, called management science, reinvented business education for the modern era, and today is reflected in our Tepper School of Business.

Hands-on learning is still central to our educational process, just as you planned. CMU students and faculty continue to make and create at every scale, and our state-of-the-art makerspaces enable remarkable innovation. At the same time, our research and creativity serve to expand our knowledge, provoke our imagination, and push the boundaries of innovation. We are developing robots that can perform heart surgery; innovating ways to produce, store, and use energy more sustainably; building molecules that give materials complex new properties; expanding our understanding of the cosmos; creating new collaborations in technology, media, art, and design; 3D-printing human organs for transplants; integrating policy, ethics, and business to meet the demands of the future of work; and creating software that triumphs over human poker players at Texas hold ’em. (You would likely not approve of gambling, even by a robot — but as an intellectual accomplishment, you would have to admit it is impressive.) At every step, interdisciplinary collaboration is our foundation; we know we accomplish more by working together.

You were always pleased that Carnegie Tech was a fine arts school, with degree programs in applied design and architecture, art, music, and drama. Artistic achievement has not only continued, it has soared; the fine arts are practiced at CMU at a high professional level, with performances of amazing quality offered every week of the academic year. As innovations and new ideas percolate across our society, we also rely increasingly on the boldness of visual arts, music, and theater to process and understand where we have come from, and to envision where we are going. Arts students and faculty are connecting to the research mission in innovative ways, including collaborations that bridge creative thought and scientific experimentation. And our fine and performing arts graduates collect rich national honors, including Tonys, Emmys, and Oscars. Many of them, including another Pittsburgh Andy — Warhol — have decisively shaped American cultural achievement over the past century.

You would be delighted to see that Carnegie Mellon students still approach their work with passion, intensity, and a spirit of community, both inside and outside the classroom. The libraries, labs, and studios are busy around the clock, and students also contribute to our community by performing more than 200,000 hours of service each year. Student organizations thrive, from performing arts groups to data science clubs to multicultural organizations to buggy racing teams. In your honor, the campus culture embraces all things Scottish: academic gowns are lined in plaid, the school paper is The Tartan, and no CMU academic ceremony is complete without the iconic sound of bagpipes. Of course, one of the greatest traditions we’ve kept in your name is an emphasis on philanthropy, as represented by the Andrew Carnegie Society, a group of generous donors who help to fund scholarships, fuel undergraduate research, and invest in the student experience.

Carnegie Mellon University owns a wonderful life-sized portrait of you in your honorary role as rector of the great University of St. Andrews in Scotland. I am told it was one of your favorite images of yourself, and it now hangs outside my office. Standing in cap and gown, you seem at ease in your academic regalia, the consummate university man — but the truth is, you were never that. Although you had very little formal schooling, all your life you were hungry for learning and you had deep respect for practical knowledge and expertise.

As my faculty colleagues prepare students for careers that have not yet been invented, your bold vision, commitment to inclusion and opportunity, and insistence on pragmatic impact continue to serve as our inspiration. In the knowledge-driven world of 2019, your dream of a school dedicated to innovation, creativity, and the betterment of society has never been more vital and more alive.

When I pass by your portrait at the end of each exciting and fulfilling day of this future you envisioned, I am reminded, sir, that our hearts are still very much in the work.

Sincerely,

Farnam Jahanian

President

Dear Mr. Carnegie,

I am honored to represent Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh as I report to you on the progress of this, your “palace of culture,” which you gifted to Pittsburgh 124 years ago.

It all began, of course, with the construction of your magnificent building — your “monument,” as you called it — situated in what is now the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and home to your beloved library, museums, and music hall. We know from your archived correspondence that you reveled in every detail of the building’s design and the many impressive acquisitions of its earliest contents.

At the building’s dedication ceremony on November 5, 1895, you spoke with great emotion about the vision you had for your museums. We’ve decided to use those words as a guide as we consider how the Carnegie Museums of today continue to carry out your noble vision.

“My aspirations take a higher flight,” you said to the attentive crowd gathered that day. “Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit.”

We’re so proud to report that your high-flying hopes and dreams for your museums have been realized, many times over, and they continue to be celebrated, not only in Pittsburgh but the world over. Most importantly, the museum family you created continues to change lives. You believed museums had the power to transform, by inspiring and challenging the individual. And you were so right!

Physically, the contemporary Carnegie Museums carried out your vision through an ambitious period of growth, beginning in 1974 with the addition of the Sarah Scaife Galleries, which gave Carnegie Museum of Art’s constantly growing collections their own elegant space. In 1991, Carnegie Science Center entered the Carnegie Museums fold, serving as a town square of hands-on learning about the science of everyday life, as well as a leader in the STEM learning movement — the application of science, technology, engineering, and math principles; being curious about the world around you, asking questions, and acquiring problem-solving skills. Only three years later, Carnegie Museums again brought something new and irreplaceable to Pittsburgh and the world: The Andy Warhol Museum, the most comprehensive single-artist museum ever built — a fitting tribute to another son of Pittsburgh, who was a graduate of another of your gifts to the city, Carnegie Institute of Technology (known today as Carnegie Mellon University), and who defined what we know as Pop art.

We often wondered what you would think of our decision to more than double our museum family — and, in doing so, more than double our reach — by giving Pittsburgh two new museums in five years. I feel certain you wouldn’t have just liked the idea; you would have demanded that it happen!

More recently, the expansion and reimagining of your world-renowned dinosaur hall produced Dinosaurs in Their Time, an exhibition truly worthy of its incredible inhabitants, not to mention the first permanent dinosaur exhibition in the world to feature real specimens in scientifically accurate, immersive environments spanning the Age of Dinosaurs. All told, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History today houses 20 galleries that display up to 10,000 artifacts and specimens. And its collection continues to grow as museum scientists undertake fieldwork around the world — from the study of amphibians in Borneo to the unearthing of new dinosaurs in the Antarctic.

All of that physical growth has led to what we believe is a Carnegie Museums family you would still consider “one of the chief satisfactions of my life,” as you put it — four diverse museums that lift up individuals and communities through their commitment to educational programming and one-of-a-kind experiences that inspire people of all ages, backgrounds, and interests to explore their world. Carnegie Museums today employs more than 1,000 people, including renowned scientists and curators, greatly enriches the quality of life of the region’s residents, and attracts hundreds of thousands of out-of-town visitors each year.

All told, our museums reach 1.5 million people annually, many of them schoolchildren who still look up in wonder at the stately architectural casts and imposing dinosaur skeletons that the people of Pittsburgh marveled at well over a century ago.It’s true that, today, most of those schoolchildren have digital access to seemingly limitless amounts of information and entertainment — the kind of access that the men, women, and children of 1895 Pittsburgh couldn’t even dream about. But there’s still something profound about seeing Winslow Homer’s The Wreck or Claude Monet’s Water Lilies up close and in person. And nothing can replace standing beneath the long, elegant skeleton of your namesake, Diplodocus carnegii — the real bones of an animal that roamed Earth more than 160 million years ago.

You were particularly proud to tell your guests at that November 1895 gathering that “already, many casts of the world’s masterpieces of sculpture are within these walls. Ultimately, there will be gathered from all parts of the world casts of those objects which take highest rank.”

You were speaking of what would become the great Hall of Architecture, completed by you in 1907 after Carnegie Museums’ first expansion. That hall continues to engage visitors of all ages with its more than 140 casts of architectural fragments of significant buildings. The Romanesque façade of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, which was commissioned by you specifically for the Hall of Architecture, is still the breathtaking centerpiece of the collection.

In the decades that followed, scores of museums would rid themselves of their cast collections because of space concerns, and because they felt they no longer had any real value. But we continue to celebrate our architectural casts today. In fact, Carnegie Museum of Art’s architectural cast collection is one of only three still in existence; the others are London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and Paris’s Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine. We’re incredibly proud of this fact. What’s more, the museum’s curatorial team is committed to finding new ways to make this stunning collection even more relevant to audiences today. In 2017, the museum organized an innovative exhibition titled Copy + Paste, which looked back at the history of the hall while also looking forward. With the help of colleagues from neighboring Carnegie Mellon, that exhibition experimented with such new technologies as augmented reality and 3D printing — all with the intent of making the Hall of Architecture accessible and inspiring to future generations.

At that 1895 dedication ceremony, you also spoke of the joy that art brought to your life — and when, as a boy, you “first awoke to the sense of color, and what an awakening it was and has been.” I’m sure you would be pleased to know that countless children get the chance to have similar awakenings each year when they visit your museums and participate in classes and camps. Alyssia Lowe, a participant in a workshop that encouraged young people to tell their stories through art, had this to say about her own awakening: “To see all of this in person was a life-changing event that I will be forever grateful for. I learned so much about who I am and what I can and will do in my future.”

Clearly, few things excited you quite as much as the far-reaching potential of your Carnegie Museum of Art and what would become the Carnegie International, an exhibition that has served as an ongoing survey of contemporary art since 1896 — first American art, and then the art of the world. “There is a great field lying back of us, which it is desirable that some institution should occupy by gathering the earliest masterpieces of American painting from the beginning,” you told the crowd that November day. “But the field for which this Gallery is designed begins with the year 1896. From next year we may hope that the Nation will have something worthy of being considered in after years a record from year to year. … If this fond hope be realized, then Pittsburgh will be famous for art as it is now for steel.”

“My aspirations take a higher flight,” you said to the attentive crowd gathered that day. “Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit.”

Today, the Carnegie International is the oldest exhibition of international contemporary art in North America, and the second oldest in the world. Most importantly, it continues to educate and inspire countless audiences, promote the international understanding of art, support the work of contemporary artists, attract the art world to Pittsburgh, and help build and diversify the Museum of Art’s expansive collections.

The 57th edition of this great tradition just ended in March 2019, featuring the contemporary work of 32 international artists. I think you’d find one of the art installations particularly interesting: the work of Tavares Strachan, a Bahamian-born and now New York-based artist. His colorful additions to the exterior of your great building proved to be one of the exhibition’s most popular artworks.

“I was just curious about the names they already had on the building, and so I just wanted to think about editing, or adding to that list of names people who might be invisible, or who might not ever end up on a building,” Strachan said. So he used multi-colored neon lettering to affix the names of modern-day musicians, social activists, authors, and scientists between names of the likes of Aristotle, Darwin, Leonardo, Mozart. Among the names that he added to the building were Matthew Alexander Henson, a black Arctic explorer who was among the first to reach the North Pole, and Qiu Jin, a feminist poet and revolutionary, who became known as “China’s Joan of Arc.”

Strachan’s addendum to history is emblematic, in a way, of a quite serious effort among contemporary cultural organizations the world over to diversify their collections, their exhibitions, and their programming in order to be more inclusive of the world around them. As a purveyor of ideas, Carnegie Museums takes seriously this need to make all audiences feel welcomed and represented. The Carnegie International is just one of numerous examples of how our museums are working towards this important goal.

Without a doubt, for me the words that still resonate most from your November 5, 1895, remarks are these: “No man can become rich without himself enriching others.”

Your Carnegie Museums were an incredibly thoughtful, forward-looking gift to a city that, at the time, was known entirely for its grit, not its culture. That was exactly the point: that each of us should have the opportunity to explore unknown worlds, past and present, right where we live, and become better for that exploration. And while you supported your initial dream financially, you fully expected many others to follow suit. And many did — including the Heinz, Mellon, and Buhl families, whose patriarchs were your peers in building our great city. The museum projects they helped make possible include the addition of Museum of Art’s Scaife wing and Heinz Architectural Center, and the Science Center’s Buhl Planetarium.

An impressive number of individuals and organizations continue to support the four Carnegie Museums generously today. They believe, as you did, in their transformational power. They are true believers in your cause, believers in your legacy — as are the women and men I am so proud to work with in the museum family that still carries your name.

Sincerely yours,

William E. Hunt

Chair, Board of Trustees

Dear Mr. Carnegie,

I wish that it were possible to walk with you through the rooms, the stacks, and the spaces of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Main Library. I can imagine an enlightening conversation in which you share your original vision for the design and I tell you what has changed since you founded this library in 1895. Together we could marvel at the ways in which the building has evolved to accommodate the collections and services we offer today. It would be such an honor to be able to see our library through your eyes.

I know that you would expect our collection of books to have grown significantly since your time. They fill the stacks and spill into spaces that were originally intended for other purposes. We collect and curate wisely, and have done so since the day you opened our library. Our collection reflects both what is current and what is most important to keep from the past for the people of today and for those in the future.

You would likely be amazed but not surprised by the technology that is available to us and the ways in which the Library uses that technology both to manage our work and to connect people with content and resources from all over the world. As it was from the very beginning of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, we know that the people of our community need to master new tools and acquire new knowledge in order to meet their goals. Through the years, we have made products and devices available that speed access to information and foster skills proficiency for work, educational, and life success.

I would want to take you out to Pittsburgh neighborhoods to visit our branch libraries. You will find that some of the libraries that you built still stand as vibrant, welcoming anchors in their communities. A few of the original buildings are no longer functioning as libraries or may be gone altogether. In every case, newer buildings serve those communities. Over the years, we have established libraries in neighborhoods beyond those you had originally identified. We now have nineteen locations within the City of Pittsburgh. Nearly all have been renovated, updated, or replaced in the last twenty years.

When we visit, you will still see people reading quietly and children sitting still to listen to a story. You are just as likely to see people working collaboratively on projects, discussing their work, using computers, white boards, and cameras to create or illustrate their ideas. You will hear children singing and laughing, and you can watch them in creative play. You will find spaces reserved just for teenagers, that special stage in life where friendship, aspirations, and an emerging sense of self all come together to shape a promising future. Please be advised that our teen spaces are crowded and noisy, but in a good way. That is how teens learn and grow.

Mr. Carnegie, we must address the best and most important aspect of our Library, and that is the people. By that, I mean the Library staff, the residents of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County whom we serve, and our volunteers, funders, donors, and community partners who support our work. At Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, we often say the library is something we all do together. It truly takes the collective efforts of our entire community to ensure our viability and our success. This, Mr. Carnegie, was your original vision as it was reflected in the trust agreement that you established with the City of Pittsburgh so long ago — a document that still serves as the bylaws and operating principles for our Board of Trustees to this day.

In the past few years, we have been fortunate to host naturalization ceremonies at our library. There really is something very fitting in becoming a citizen of our democracy at the public library. I am honored and privileged to address these new citizens each time.

I want to make particular mention of the Library staff. They are as wonderful a group of people as you could ever know, and I would posit that they have always been so throughout the decades of our existence. People who work at the public library have passion — for learning, literacy, literature, and for other people. Early on in the history of the library, an effort was made to hire people who were learned, scholarly, and erudite; who were well versed in history, the arts, literature, and the sciences. Today we still hire for education but we look more for kindness, curiosity, and compassion. We want people who can be interested in whatever someone else is interested in, and who will pursue that interest with a passion until the customer is satisfied.

The public library today is a much more complex organization than it was in 1895. In addition to those who manage and maintain collections and engage people of all ages in literacy and learning, we need staff members who secure our funding, administer our finances, promote our services, oversee our facilities, guide staff support, manage our information technology, and more. You know, Mr. Carnegie, that the library is funded primarily with public dollars. You said yourself that, “unless a community is willing to maintain Public Libraries at the public cost … very little good can be obtained from them.” No one will get rich working here. Although we do our best to provide good salaries and benefits, we know people who work at the Library are motivated by much more than financial gain. We sincerely believe in the mission. We are proud of the words “Free to the People” that are chiseled over our doors.

You would be so gratified to know how important the public library is to so many people. Every day we hear memories and stories that are heartwarming and humbling. People speak fondly of childhood trips to the library with a parent, a sibling, or a friend. They tell us the library was the first place they came when they were new in town and how they found a community here. They share that they borrowed a book that helped them understand they were not alone; others think or feel the same way they do. They say that when they were at the lowest point in their lives, visiting the public library helped them through their troubles. They let us know that with our assistance they got the job, passed the test, won an award, or achieved a goal. At the library they feel they can always be their authentic selves, and that matters. As librarians, we take everyone as they come, and we try to help in the best way that we can.

Mr. Carnegie, I want you to know that you have truly left a legacy that endures. Your work and your story still make a difference. We cite your words and recognize your influence regularly. As an example, in the past few years, we have been fortunate to host naturalization ceremonies at our library. There really is something very fitting in becoming a citizen of our democracy at the public library. I am honored and privileged to address these new citizens each time.

I always tell them about you, Mr. Carnegie, our founder. I tell them you were also an immigrant. I say that you came to this country with your family as a boy from Scotland and settled in Allegheny City, which we now call the North Side. I share that you did not go to school; you had to go right to work to help support your family. I mention a gentleman in town named Colonel James Anderson who had a roomful of books, a veritable library, in his house, and how on Saturdays he would invite the working boys in to select a book to borrow and read for the week. I tell them that you, young Mr. Carnegie, took full advantage of this opportunity, and you credited this reading for your success as you went on to become one of the richest people in the world. When you decided to give back, you built public libraries in our city, region, country, and beyond. You were steadfast in your belief that with access to books and reading and self-directed learning, a person could be anything he or she might want to be. This belief is still core to library services today.

I urge our new citizens to take full advantage of all the organizations and institutions that exist in our country to serve them, including their public library. Of course, they are nervous and excited at this important moment, and may not quite hear it, but each time several people nod and smile when I talk about the library. Sometimes someone will pull out his or her library card to show me, and it grabs my heart.

Mr. Carnegie, I believe that your true legacy is how your particular brand of philanthropy reflects a fundamental faith in people and in our individual and collective desire to do the right thing. Through the institutions and causes you chose to fund, we see evidence of your belief that, given the right support, people will work hard, study, and learn; become better versions of themselves; value science, arts, and culture; aspire to world peace; and risk, even sacrifice, their own lives to save others. People of great wealth today have embraced your conviction that their riches should be put toward health, education, and other causes that benefit humanity. The public libraries you founded are still going strong, ever firm in our belief that access to books and reading and self-directed learning can change lives.

Very sincerely yours,

Mary Frances Cooper

President and Director

Dear Mr. Carnegie,

It is my privilege as the Executive and Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall to commemorate this special anniversary year by reflecting on the transformational impact that your incredible Music Hall has had on the cultural life of New York City, as well as its far-reaching influence on music around the world.

As the Carnegie Hall team enters this beautiful landmark building each day, you are well remembered not only for your love of music, but for the way in which you aspired to ensure the best possible results of whatever you set out to accomplish, your belief in access to education for all, and your commitment to building an enterprise that would be sustainable through the years. Your vision still inspires us today and remains an integral part of our institution’s DNA.

Everyone who cares about great music is fortunate that, while sailing to your honeymoon in Scotland, you and your new bride Louise — who sang in the Oratorio Society of New York — crossed paths with one of our city’s leading conductors, Walter Damrosch, and that, after much conversation, you agreed to build an ideal hall for concert music in New York. While Midtown in that day was centered around 14th Street, we appreciate that you ignored the critics and had the foresight to place your hall much further uptown, understanding that our growing city would soon stretch beyond its conventional boundaries. Construction of the building progressed remarkably quickly — from start to finish in less than a year. When the Hall’s doors opened for the first time on May 5, 1891, you ensured that Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the most famous musician of the day, was at the center of the festivities, marking Carnegie Hall from its very beginning as a place where audiences would experience the best in music.

From that moment, Carnegie Hall established itself as a place where music history is made. Over the years, the Hall’s renown has been rooted in its stunning acoustics, the beauty of its three concert halls, and its location in New York City. Over the course of more than a century, it has played a central role in elevating the city into one of the world’s top cultural capitals.

When the Hall’s cornerstone was laid in 1890, you proclaimed, “It is probable that this hall will intertwine itself with the history of our country.” This has been true from the start. Since Tchaikovsky first stepped onto its platform, Carnegie Hall has been an irresistible magnet for talent and an aspirational destination for the world’s finest artists, all inspired to follow in the footsteps of the greats who appeared before. From Dvorˇák, Mahler, Bartók, and Bernstein to George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Judy Garland, Count Basie, The Beatles, and Frank Sinatra, pioneering political and social figures along with classical, jazz, and popular music icons have all played a part in placing the Hall in a unique position at the intersection of music performance and social and political discourse.

In your cornerstone speech, you also commented on your desire that “all causes may here find a place.” I believe you would be pleased to know, as a venue that was never segregated and always open to all, Carnegie Hall has become a place dedicated to the best of almost every kind of music, and a prominent public forum for such causes as women’s suffrage, labor, and civil rights, as well as the home of civic events, rallies, graduations, and community gatherings of almost every kind. In addition, over the last decade, Carnegie Hall festivals have connected cultural institutions citywide to explore some of the most relevant themes of the day through the arts, for example: musical traditions from around the globe; how migration has contributed to America’s culture; the turbulent social landscape of the 1960s in the United States; and many more.

Facing crumbling infrastructure, peeling paint, and water seeping through the ceiling, the artists and city leaders who made up Carnegie Hall’s new board of trustees stepped forward as stewards of the building.

As its benefactor, you hoped Carnegie Hall would be embraced by the community, and that, over time, it would stand on its own. When times changed and the city continued to evolve, the Hall came within a hair’s breadth of the wrecking ball in 1959. We think you would have been moved to see the remarkable advocacy of the great violinist Isaac Stern, rallying citizens to protect and preserve this incomparable musical gem, grasping what the concert hall would mean to future generations. Purchased by the City of New York in 1960 and established as a non-profit organization, Carnegie Hall entered a new phase of its life as a public trust. Facing crumbling infrastructure, peeling paint, and water seeping through the ceiling, the artists and city leaders who made up Carnegie Hall’s new board of trustees stepped forward as stewards of the building, eventually raising more than $500 million in capital and endowment funds to restore the Hall to its original glory, transform the outmoded underground recital hall into the fully contemporary Zankel Hall, underpin and expand the Hall’s concert presentations and education programming, and gain deserved recognition for Carnegie Hall as a national historic landmark and international center of culture.

Given your strong belief that everyone has the right of access to education, we believe you would appreciate that music education has become central to Carnegie Hall’s mission today. The two Studio Towers atop the building, which you originally had constructed to attract artists who would provide rental income to support the Hall, have been renovated into Carnegie Hall’s Resnick Education Wing. These beautiful new spaces now ensure that more and more people have the opportunity for music to become a meaningful part of their lives. Complementing the array of performances on the three stages below, innovative music education and social impact programs created by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute — most offered free or at low cost — now fill the building’s upper floors with students, educators, young aspiring artists, families, and community members of all ages coming together to make and enjoy music. Through technology and partnerships, these initiatives are increasingly leveraged to reach more than 600,000 people in concert halls, schools, and community settings around the globe.

In the coming years, you can be assured that Carnegie Hall’s commitment to the future of music and the role it can play in transforming people’s lives will continue to grow — not only with the increasing breadth of programming within its three halls, but far beyond its walls, in ways that even you may not have been able to imagine! In keeping with our role as a leading concert hall of the twenty-first century, we will continue to advance music education by sharing online resources with partners worldwide; we will enlarge the circle of people who can enjoy our performances by webcasting select performances from Carnegie Hall’s stages to music lovers around the globe; and we will share Carnegie Hall’s story with more and more people online, including through our digital archival collections, an initiative funded in part by Carnegie Corporation of New York. Although we will soon be reaching many more people beyond our walls than within them, the flame of your extraordinary legacy within Carnegie Hall will always illuminate our work around the globe.

It is with great pleasure that we thank you for your generosity and for all that you contributed personally to enrich the lives of people around the world. We know, as we look to Carnegie Hall’s next one hundred years, that its future chapters will be at least as exciting as its illustrious past. The peerless institution you created has an almost unlimited potential to change lives for the better through music, and this will forever remain the inspiration as well as the responsibility of all who serve here.

With all best wishes,

Clive Gillinson

Executive and Artistic Director