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