NEW YORK — He ranks with the outstanding immigrants of America who have risen to great heights in designing the intellectual landscape of this country. Especially noteworthy is his special commitment to the arts, education, and humanity through philanthropy.

On Monday evening, June 10, 2019, former New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg presented Dr. Vartan Gregorian with the coveted Carnegie Hall Medal of Excellence for his many accomplishments and his inspiring story. The event commemorated both New York City’s festival of migration as well as the 100th anniversary of the passing of another legendary immigrant, Andrew Carnegie.

More than 230 people braved all-day thunderstorms to attend this gala presentation at the elegant Grand Ballroom of New York’s Plaza Hotel. This extraordinary event raised $1.9 million for Carnegie Hall’s program of music education and social impact projects.

Every year more than 600,000 students, teachers, and individuals are served through these programs.

Among the prominent guests present were top officials of Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Starr Foundation, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and the Stephen Kellen Foundation, as well as former New York governor George Pataki, former New Jersey governor Tom Kean, PBS television news anchor Judy Woodruff, and Caroline Kennedy.

 

 

Also attending were several well-known Armenian dignitaries, including Varuzhan Nersesyan, Armenia’s ambassador to the United States; Mher Margaryan, Armenia’s ambassador to the United Nations; and Garen Nazarian, Armenia’s ambassador to the Vatican. Philanthropists Ruben Vardanyan, Noubar Afeyan, Aso Tavitian, Garo Armen, Edward Avedisian, and Sarkis Jebejian also attended.

As the guests filed into the ornately decorated Grand Ballroom, replete with huge baskets of ferns and branches hanging from the frescoed ceiling, there was an air of palpable excitement.

A Stellar Trajectory

The host, Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director, in calling Gregorian “a great educator, leader, and philanthropic visionary,” added, “Vartan’s story is a reminder of what is possible with remarkable talent, tireless dedication, and limitless imagination. No one is more deserving of this honor.”

The speaker revealed to the elite, mostly non-Armenian audience that the honoree was born to Armenian parents in Tabriz, Iran. “His maternal grandmother Vosky being his greatest teacher and inspiration. She encouraged him to pursue his studies in Beirut at 15 years of age.” (Vosky means “gold” in Armenian.)

 

 

The two greatest lessons he learned from his grandmother Vosky were “dignity is not negotiable,” said Gillinson, and that “one must do good without expectation of reward.” Amidst a tumultuous childhood, the speaker continued, “Vartan found refuge in the Armenian library above the local archbishop’s residence.”

When he came to this country at age 22, he knew virtually no English. Attending Stanford University, education had become the cornerstone of his life from an early age.

He quickly advanced, and his storied career included Gregorian becoming the second foreign-born provost of the University of Pennsylvania, the first foreign-born president of The New York Public Library, the first foreign-born president of an Ivy League university (Brown), and later the president of Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Noted historian Robert Caro, with humor, described how Gregorian brought The New York Public Library “back to life,” how he advanced education at Brown University with “warm communication,” and how he “embodies the true spirit of generosity as a philanthropist.”

PBS news anchor Judy Woodruff recalled her 20-year friendship with the honoree, describing him as “this handsome bear of a man, with his big smile and open arms who used to bound into my office, giving of himself. He made a huge impact on public media, especially PBS, and he has been a man of inspiration, boundless energy, and special warmth both with the powerful and the not powerful.”

World-famous violinist Pinchas Zukerman, accompanied by Canadian pianist Bryan Wagorn, delighted the guests with several classical and popular selections.

Former mayor Bloomberg, in awarding the Carnegie Hall Medal of Excellence to the honoree, stated that Andrew Carnegie and Vartan Gregorian “are alike, both as extraordinary immigrants, in helping others, as gifted writers, and in reshaping philanthropy. As an optimist and a realist, Vartan knows how to bring people together.”

 

 

In expressing his gratitude, first to his late beloved wife, Clare, his family, and to all who made the evening possible, Vartan Gregorian, who is the recipient of 75 honorary degrees and 19 medals, said with obvious emotion that “this medal is the sweetest, happiest medal I have ever received.”

He revealed that he has tried to shape his life to legendary writer Alexis de Tocqueville’s principles of democracy. Then, revealing his deeply held belief, he declared, “Any wealthy person who has died rich did not have the sense on how to invest for the people,” bringing the huge crowd to a standing ovation.

Feelings Abound

Following the celebratory occasion, many attendees were anxious to reveal their feelings.

Former governor George Pataki declared, “There is no better public servant than Vartan Gregorian.”

Dr. Levon Nazarian, representing the philanthropic Nazarian family, asked rhetorically, “What Armenian has achieved more in America than Vartan?”

Dr. Raffi Hovanessian commented, “As a nation, we are being honored.”

Ruben Vardanyan called Gregorian “my mentor.”

Judy Woodruff gushed, “I am in such awe of this man that I have been privileged to know for 20 years.”

Noubar Afeyan noted, “If he wasn’t Armenian, and if I didn’t know him, I would still be here.”

Aso Tavitian declared, “I feel honored to be where he is honored.”

Sarkis Jebejian was “so proud of how highly respected Vartan is in all communities and cultures.”

And Vartan Gregorian, the man of the hour himself, humbly commented, “This is Carnegie’s honor.”

It was a celebratory spring for Carnegie Corporation of New York. Three important grantee organizations marked significant milestones, giving special recognition to the Corporation for its role in their founding and for its president, Vartan Gregorian.

 

Sesame Celebrating 50 Years of Children’s Educational Programming

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, celebrated 50 years of groundbreaking work helping children to grow “smarter, stronger, and kinder,” and its global social impact work with a star-studded event in May in New York City. Former first lady Michelle Obama was honored with the Joan Ganz Cooney Award, named for Sesame Street’s founder. The anniversary gala featured special appearances by John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Lin-Manuel Miranda, John Oliver, Hoda Kotb and the Sesame Street Muppets, with honorees spanning the organization’s past, present, and future.

 

“When I became first lady, and I knew that I wanted to help kids reach their potential, my first question was a simple but familiar one: Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?” Obama said upon accepting the award. “I cannot tell you how proud and thankful I am to come here tonight as a Sesame Street partner. You are always ahead of the curve, always out there observing, and learning, and creating new ways to help kids and parents navigate the world around them.”

In 1969, in the midst of the civil rights movement, Sesame Street was created with the hope that television be used to level the playing field and help disadvantaged children prepare for school. The founders tapped educational advisors and researchers, entertainers and television producers, and other visionaries to create what has become the longest-running children’s show in American television history.

At the gala, Ford Foundation president Darren Walker and Corporation president Vartan Gregorian received a joint Visionary Award for the pivotal role the two foundations played in the development of Sesame Workshop and public television itself in the 1960s.

“In 1969 the audacious philanthropy of Carnegie Corporation and Ford Foundation made the creation of Sesame Street possible, helping to improve the lives of millions of less advantaged children around the world,” said Sherrie Westin, Sesame Workshop’s president of social impact and philanthropy. “Fifty years later, we’re thrilled that similarly bold commitments from the MacArthur Foundation and the LEGO Foundation are helping us give millions of displaced children the tools they need to thrive.”

In acknowledgement of their historic gift, Julia Stasch, president of the MacArthur Foundation, said its $100 million contribution aims to help Sesame Workshop and the International Rescue Committee bring early childhood education to children affected by refugee crises. LEGO Foundation CEO John Goodwin accepted the Innovation Award for his organization’s commitment to supporting displaced children through the power of playful learning.

All of Sesame Workshop’s social impact work — from providing early learning to millions of children affected by the Syrian and Rohingya refugee crises to addressing tough topics like homelessness and foster care in the United States — is made possible with the support of partners like the Corporation. The gala raised more than $4.5 million, helping Sesame Workshop reach children and families in more than 150 countries, including areas where children have no other access to quality early education.

“Sesame Street had a profound impact on children’s media, setting a template that the industry has followed for generations,” said Lloyd Morrisett, Sesame Workshop’s cofounder. “Fifty years later, Sesame Workshop continues to deliver on its mission every day, across multiple platforms, on six continents. We started as an experiment — and it worked.”

 

New York’s Tenement Museum Looks Ahead

Also in May, the Tenement Museum in New York, which advances understanding of the immigrant experience and highlights the role that immigration has played in American history, honored Corporation president Gregorian, along with educator and filmmaker Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and philanthropist Stephen Siegel, at its 2019 gala, held in Manhattan.

 

Tenement Museum trustee Nicole Howe Buggs, who also leads the Corporation’s information technology and grants management departments, delivered a moving speech recalling her own family’s immigration from Trinidad, and introduced Gregorian, an immigrant of Armenian descent from Iran, recognizing his work on behalf of immigrants.

“Much like the museum, Vartan brings the American immigration story to life,” Howe Buggs said. “He reminds us of the connection between the past and today, the crucial role immigrants play in strengthening our democracy, and he provides insight on how past events help us unlock and decipher current events as well as prepare us for what lies ahead.”

 

“While America is not perfect, it is perfectible.”

— Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York

 

She added that during Gregorian’s tenure as president, the Corporation has awarded more than 300 grants, totaling more than $150 million, in support of immigrant civic integration.

Gregorian reminded the crowd that “While America is not perfect, it is perfectible.”

Later in the evening, Tenement Museum president Kevin Jennings spoke about the role the museum has begun to play in the national conversation on immigration since the launch of its five-year strategic plan at the previous year’s gala.

“Our goal is to reach millions, not thousands, with our message, and to help change the terms of the national debate on immigration,” he said.

 

IIE: Shaping Scholarship Around the World

In February more than 500 leaders from higher education, government, and diplomacy gathered in New York City for three days to explore the future of international education. The summit was one of several programs that celebrated the centennial anniversary of the Institute for International Education (IIE), an organization known for its prestigious Fulbright scholarship program and supported by the Corporation since its inception 100 years ago.

 

The IIE is the leading global organization administering some of the world’s most inclusive and innovative programs in international education and exchange, including the Fulbright Programs of the U.S. State Department, the Language Flagship of the U.S. Defense Department, and the Ford International Fellowships Program. IIE was one of the first advocates for international exchange, pioneering new models of collaboration among colleges and universities across the globe.

“There is no better way to foster diplomatic relations than through people-to-people exchange,” said IIE chairman Thomas S. Johnson at the event. “IIE’s century-long investment in international education makes the world a safer and more interconnected place, creating stronger global ties and enhancing mutual understanding among nations.”

At IIE’s centennial celebration events, former British prime minister Gordon Brown received the Henry Kaufman Prize, and Corporation president Gregorian, a former trustee of IIE, accepted a Centennial Medal on behalf of the Corporation. “This is one of the hopes of all educators: that with understanding you can solve differences and build alliances,” said Gregorian.

Over the past 100 years, IIE programs have aided thousands of scholars, students, and artists threatened by conflict and turmoil in their home countries. By providing refuge to imperiled scholars, the IIE has helped shape scholarship around the world. “This is an organization that is very much about using education as a diplomacy tool to make the world a better place,” said IIE vice chairman Mark Angelson.

 

The Carnegie organizations that marched included Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Hall, and Carnegie Mellon University, with others there in spirit.

The Corporation’s principal design director, Daniel Kitae Um, conjured up flags, kerchiefs, a banner, and even pom-poms in a design that combined the world peace tartan with the Carnegie Medal tartan, creating a waving sea of light blue, purple, and yellow among the contingent. They walked behind a banner emblazoned with a quote from Andrew Carnegie: “The whole world moves, and moves in the right direction — upward and onward.”

“It was wonderful to see Carnegie Corporation, led by Vartan Gregorian, join other Carnegie organizations on Sixth Avenue and march in the New York Tartan Day Parade,” said Camilla G. Hellman, president of the American-Scottish Foundation.

“Although they had not marched in the parade before,” Hellman continued, “Carnegie Corporation has been involved and helpful in the programming that the American-Scottish Foundation has done around Tartan Week, from an exhibit and panel discussion (led by Gregorian) on Andrew Carnegie at the Finance Museum to a previous talk we had done around The Scots who Built New York project.”

The Corporation has also worked closely with the American-Scottish Foundation on other projects over the years, such as a recent lecture by historian and architect John Kinnear entitled “The Scots Who Built New York: Andrew Carnegie’s Contributions to Architecture and the Promotion of Ideas, 1855–1919.” The talk was a part of Carnegie Hall’s ambitious Migrations festival, which explored how the history of America is indelibly linked to the movement of people, some not brought here of their own free will, whose perseverance and resilience transformed the nation.

D’Onofrio says that she sees this year’s Tartan Day Parade march as the start of a tradition for the Corporation. “Whenever there is an opportunity to get the Carnegie organizations together, we try and make it happen. We’re already talking about floats and costumes for next year.”

And that papier-mâché Andrew Carnegie? He’s bound to bring more joy in public appearances down the line, but for now he’s resting in Vartan’s office.

 

“He’s an enigma,” says Gino Francesconi with both intensity and wonderment. “The more I get to know him, the more elusive he becomes to me.” Francesconi has spent some time getting to know Andrew Carnegie. As archivist and director of the Rose Museum at Carnegie Hall, he has curated Andrew Carnegie: His Life and Legacy, the museum’s first exhibition about the hall’s founder, on display through the end of October 2019 in celebration of the centennial of Andrew Carnegie’s death.

Francesconi has spent his entire career under the roof of one of Carnegie’s greatest cultural contributions, starting off as an usher at Carnegie Hall 45 years ago. “I worked my way down from the balcony,” he jokes, referring to the Rose Museum’s location on the second floor.

In preparation for the exhibition, Francesconi spent a year researching, interviewing family members, poring over biographies, and digging through archival documents, vintage photographs, and historical artifacts. The resulting display deftly charts Carnegie’s journey from humble beginnings in Dunfermline, Scotland, to his position as the most prominent philanthropist of his time, a story unfolding across two 13-foot exhibition cases in the museum — a tight space for such an extraordinary life.

 

 

Many parts of Carnegie’s rags-to-riches story hardly seem credible. The early poverty. The grueling 10-week journey, by boat, ferry, and barge, that brought him and his family to western Pennsylvania in 1848 after his father lost his job in Scotland. The 12-hour shifts as a bobbin boy in a Pittsburgh textile factory, earning $1.20 a week to help the family make ends meet. And then … the boy’s ability to quickly master Morse code, making him something of local phenomenon … which led to a promotion … which brought him to the attention of the man who would tip him off to his first investment. To a remarkable degree, Carnegie possessed the ability to make insightful — even visionary — decisions at the critical junctures in his life.

 

Keen Instincts, Indelible Experiences

Young Carnegie heard about a well-to-do man who possessed a large library that he made available to working boys. He knocked at the door but was turned away when the man learned that he was but a lowly bobbin boy. Feeling deeply that this was wrong, the 13-year-old Carnegie had the acumen to write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper protesting this iniquity. The letter must have helped because the wealthy man changed his mind — and Carnegie went on to educate himself in that very library.

“It’s surprising how keen, from a very young age, his instincts were,” says Francesconi. “His quest for knowledge … his very uncommon sense of common sense!” Not to mention his sense of what is right and just, which would later come to play such a prominent role in his philanthropic work.

 

“Carnegie was about 20 years down the road about almost everything.  He had impeccable timing: to be in the right place at the right time and to know what to do with it.”

— Gino Francesconi, Director, Rose Museum, Carnegie Hall

 

Carnegie soon took a job at the telegraph company running messages. His boss recommended that he invest in a forerunner of American Express. Carnegie’s mother traveled around gathering money from family, scraping together $500 (the equivalent of $10,000 today) for the investment. It proved a success, forever changing Carnegie’s life. After his first dividend check arrived, “a lightbulb went off,” as Francesconi describes it. Carnegie had the realization that he could earn money by investing it — rather than subjecting himself to the harsh demands of manual labor.

 

 

An early investment in railroad sleeper cars earned him his first considerable fortune. Carnegie went on to invest in nearly two dozen companies, and he founded the Keystone Bridge Company, which built the first iron truss bridge across the Mississippi. He purchased iron mills and experimented with the newest technologies for converting iron to steel.

By the age of 33 Carnegie was worth $450,000, or what would be $8 million today, more than he needed to live comfortably for the rest of his life. (And this was before his forays into steel manufacturing.) In the posthumously published Autobiography (1920), he wrote about working in the factory as a boy and his early determination: “I began to learn what poverty meant.” It was “burnt” into his heart that his father had to beg for work: “And then and there came the resolve that I would cure that when I got to be a man.” And cure it he did. Having amassed all the wealth he and his family would ever need by his third decade, Carnegie turned his sights to helping others, and helping others help themselves. The early privations combined with his remarkable instincts developed in him a sensitivity to the needs of others as well as a strong sense of what might best serve the wider community.

 

Setting the Course for Philanthropy

That year, in 1868, he wrote a letter of intent, a declaration to himself that began to define what would become his philosophy of philanthropy. The memorandum was discovered after his death, and his wife, Louise, allowed copies to be made for the Library of Congress and The New York Public Library. In it Carnegie set forth his ambitions: “Cast aside business forever, except for others.… [and take] a part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of the poorer classes.”

Always a voracious reader on a wide variety of topics, Andrew Carnegie began to write, going on to publish dozens of books, pamphlets, and essays on subjects ranging from socialism, international arbitration, and slavery (which he opposed), to travel, economics, and peace campaigns. “He was always writing, he felt inspired,” says Francesconi, “counting Mark Twain and Booker T. Washington among his friends.” The first of Carnegie’s writings to gain wide readership in both the U.S. and Europe was Triumphant Democracy (1886), a book in which he describes how, in less than a century, the United States had surpassed Great Britain as the world’s great superpower. Calling for the abolition of the British monarchy, Carnegie argues that England should follow the American democratic system as a model.

 

Having amassed all the wealth he and his family would ever need by his third decade, Carnegie turned his sights to helping others, and helping others help themselves.

 

In 1889 Carnegie published a pair of articles in the Atlantic, which together have come to be known as The Gospel of Wealth. These two pieces — “Wealth” and “The Best Fields for Philanthropy” — caused a sensation by posing a radical idea: men of means should distribute their wealth during their lifetimes for the betterment of mankind, rather than enjoying lavish lifestyles and bequeathing vast sums to their (male) heirs (wives and daughters should be comfortably provided for). He wrote:

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer … in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community — the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren.

 

 

Books had offered Carnegie escape and enlightenment as a boy. As he recalled in his Autobiography, “In this way the windows were opened in the walls of my dungeon through which the light of knowledge streamed in. Every day’s toil and even the long hours of night service were lightened by the book which I carried about with me and read in the intervals that could be snatched from duty.” It is then fitting that his first major public donation was the gift of a public library to his hometown of Dunfermline.

Carnegie the benefactor was quickly becoming Carnegie the celebrity. By 1884 he had donated £5,000 for the Carnegie Baths recreation and health club in Dunfermline, funds for a public library in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and $50,000 to establish the first medical research laboratory in the U.S., at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.

 

In 1911 Carnegie established Carnegie Corporation of New York to distribute his remaining wealth “to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding among the people of the United States.”

 

He was a trailblazing philanthropist. “He would give a town a library but wanted them to fundraise for the land,” says Francesconi. “Today that’s called a matching grant; his was the first of its kind. Carnegie was about 20 years down the road about almost everything.  He had impeccable timing: to be in the right place at the right time and to know what to do with it.”

One such example was Carnegie Hall itself. At a time when the city was centered around 14th Street, Carnegie looked uptown — to 57th Street. Moreover, while other music halls of the era were built for companies like Steinway or for particular orchestras or impresarios, his was a grander gesture: he built a hall for all of New York City.

 

 

“I believe from the moment he started thinking along the lines of giving for the betterment of mankind, he could almost always see the bigger picture,” says Francesconi. “You can almost sense how he thought: Why build just another hall similar to the others when New York City in fact needs something on a larger scale?”

“All good causes may here find a platform,” said Carnegie at the laying of the hall’s cornerstone in 1890. And from its opening day on May 5, 1891, to the present, all causes have indeed found Carnegie Hall a welcoming platform, from a Margaret Sanger talk on birth control in 1917 to one of the earliest appearances of African American jazz musicians on a concert stage. “The variety of events is unique in the world,” observes Francesconi. “No one was ever barred from appearing because of politics, religious beliefs, or race, nor type of music. Nearly 50,000 events have taken place at Carnegie Hall, more than at any other concert hall in the world. I think Andrew would be happy.”

Carnegie gave away more than $350 million during his lifetime — the equivalent of nearly $7 billion today. He built more than 2,500 libraries; donated to the schools that eventually merged to become Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; and established the Hero Fund to award grants to men and women who risked and sometimes lost their lives for others — to name but a few of many causes, initiatives, and institutions he supported. Carnegie grew increasingly committed to the promotion of world peace in the years preceding World War I: the Peace Palace in The Hague was built thanks to his largesse and he backed an international peace conference held at Carnegie Hall in 1907.

 

The early privations combined with his remarkable instincts developed in him a sensitivity to the needs of others as well as a strong sense of what might best serve the wider community.

 

In 1911 Carnegie established Carnegie Corporation of New York to distribute his remaining wealth “to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding among the people of the United States.” He endowed the Corporation with $135 million, giving the trustees permission to adapt its programs to the changing times. He wrote, “Conditions upon the earth inevitably change; hence, no wise man will bind Trustees forever to certain paths, causes or institutions. I declaim any intention of doing so.” This philosophy meant that in the future his foundation would have the freedom to be flexible, for example helping to fund such diverse initiatives as the discovery of insulin and the creation of Sesame Street.

His Carnegie Corporation of New York, the first philanthropic organization of its kind, inspired others that followed, including The Rockefeller Foundation (1913), the Ford Foundation (1936), The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (1969), and the Giving Pledge (2010).

Gino Francesconi recalls a quotation: “‘Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.’” He continues, “If ever a line applied to Andrew Carnegie, that’s it.”

A six-and-a-half-foot red Lego dinosaur recently loomed large in the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum in the Scottish town of Dunfermline. One might not guess that thousands of hands and minds went into its construction, but this playful interpretation of the beloved Diplodocus carnegii dinosaur represents a grand collaboration. The original Diplodocus dinosaur, fondly dubbed “Dippy” by one and all, calls the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh home; a full-scale plaster replica of the original Dippy is currently touring the U.K. with great success. Meanwhile, Dunfermline went “Dippy About Dinosaurs” — thanks to Lego Dippy.

Children and other Dunfermline community members worked together with representatives from the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and the Carnegie Hero Fund Trust, as well as with renowned Lego artist Warren Elsmore and his team, to put the dino’s 35,000 Lego bricks together, bringing the model to life for those in the area who might not be able to make it to see the traveling Dippy skeleton during its residency at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. Built in the collaborative spirit that was championed by Andrew Carnegie, Lego Dippy is an apt way to celebrate the philanthropist’s legacy today, during the centennial year of his death.

 

 

“The interactive build process really brought the community together, and everyone had a great time; children, staff, adult visitors, and the Police Scotland Youth Volunteers who participated,” says Nora Rundell, chief executive of the Carnegie Dunfermline & Hero Fund Trusts. “Our idea was that not everyone can get to Glasgow to see the dinosaur cast and exhibition, and this event would provide a hands-on opportunity to relate to Dippy, even if it’s in Lego form. The aim of the exhibition in Glasgow and the Lego build in the Birthplace Museum was to allow people to see a Diplodocus take shape while learning about the fascinating story of Carnegie’s use of paleontology as a vehicle for peace diplomacy.”

Opening in Glasgow in January and running there through May 6, the extremely successful Dippy on Tour exhibition showcases the full-scale replica Diplodocus skeleton from the collections of the Natural History Museum in London. The exhibition includes materials, curated by the Birthplace Museum, telling the story of how Carnegie funded the excavation of the original fossil in Wyoming in 1898 — christened Diplodocus carnegii in honor of the dig’s benefactor. This eventually led to the development of Carnegie’s celebrated “Dinosaur Diplomacy” agenda: full-scale plaster replicas of the dinosaur skeleton were commissioned a few years later and gifted to seven heads of state, including the U.K., in an attempt to promote peace among nations. The original Dippy Diplodocus skeleton draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History each year. The U.K.’s Dippy replica, which has been on a tour throughout the country, continues to spread Carnegie’s ideals of peace and education.

 

“Carnegie was committed to inspiring younger generations in education and enterprise and the aim of the build was to make engineering concepts accessible to everyone, regardless of age or ability, and to engage them in the concept and construction processes.”

— Nora Rundell, Chief Executive of Carnegie Dunfermline & Hero Fund Trusts

 

In Dunfermline, the building of the Lego Dippy sculpture was one of several innovative educational programs designed by the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and the Birthplace Museum to teach not only natural history but structural engineering as well. The program had the added benefit of encouraging collaboration and educating the public at large about Andrew Carnegie’s legacy.

“Carnegie was committed to inspiring younger generations in education and enterprise and the aim of the build was to make engineering concepts accessible to everyone, regardless of age or ability, and to engage them in the concept and construction processes,” says Rundell.

Edinburgh-based Warren Elsmore led the Lego engineers. Elsmore specializes in engineering complex Lego models that enable group participation and construction. The choice of the Dippy shape for the completed model was meant to reinforce the Carnegie connection but also to present certain construction challenges.

 

 

Founded on teamwork, Elsmore planned a build process running over three days with each of the more than 1,100 participants, whose ages ranged from four years to adult, building simple shapes that were then put together to make up the whole. Each step of the project was designed and overseen by engineers from his team, who have created a wide range of equally challenging models in museums across Europe.

The process reflected “Carnegie’s idea that education should be accessible to all and his belief that working together will help us all to achieve great things,” says Rundell. Carnegie wisely understood that by being a “shareholder” in a process, participants would value the outcome more.

“The participants loved it,” reports Rundell. “Some kids spent hours at the museum, not only building Dippy, but also building other things, looking around the museum, and participating in family workshops, including special sessions for toddlers with Duplo instead of Lego.”

The Lego build project represents a directional change for the museum. “In the past, the museum has had more of a top-down approach presenting a ready-made exhibition for visitors to see/enjoy,” says Rundell, “whereas now it is more about joining in and doing things together.”

 

The Dunfermline community members who helped build the Lego Dippy replica are keeping Carnegie’s legacy alive — in the arts, in culture, in science, and in education.

 

On display at the Birthplace Museum through April 17, Lego Dippy was accompanied by a series of themed events (running into May) designed to engage visitors of all ages and abilities and encouraging them to explore the museum’s collection. All of the museum’s educational activities are free, in line with Carnegie’s belief that everyone should have access to education regardless of their income or ability. A dinosaur egg hunt around the museum served as a scavenger hunt bringing visitors to every corner of the collection. Dinosaur-themed family craft days, Lego-building workshops, and paleontology-themed family days as well as activities for babies and children under five help engage the youngest visitors in the museum and in Carnegie’s life and work.

Carnegie believed “there’s little success where there is little laughter,” so programming has been structured accordingly, to engage in age- and ability-appropriate ways. Toddler sessions are aimed to help them improve dexterity, while school-age children learn about Carnegie and life during the Victorian era in Dunfermline. “Carnegie was an ordinary man who achieved extraordinary things, and we teach children that they can, too,” says Rundell. “Also, children learn about how life is different today than in his time. For example, hygiene was poor in Victorian Dunfermline, but things are not great now either — we have plastic pollution and other problems that need solutions.”

One particularly innovative morning session at the Birthplace Museum was geared to children with sensory issues and special needs, offering a quieter time to connect with Lego Dippy and participate in activities around the dinosaur. These types of inclusive events are a true extension of Carnegie’s mission to foster education for all. The development of programming for individuals with autism is meant to enable those who do not usually visit museums, because of too much noise, audio interaction, light, or crowds, for example, to experience the displays in a suitable environment with appropriate support.

 

 

“Our staff have undergone training and the sessions are scheduled before and after the museum is open to the general public,” says Rundell, who reports that other groups with particular support needs can also book individual sessions. “Sometimes just offering a space for these community groups is enough — they are positively surprised when the museum staff reaches out to them and offers them an opportunity to visit and join in, such as with Young Carers (these are children under 18 who must provide care for another because of family circumstances). In most cases, these groups feel nobody is interested in them in other public venues. If kids need a quiet space and to be away from other crowds — just allowing them to come in and see an exhibit before we open to general public means a lot to them.”

The Birthplace Museum Dippy exhibit was just one of the many worldwide events being held this year as part of the Forging the Future series commemorating the centennial year of Andrew Carnegie’s passing. The Dunfermline community members who helped build the Lego Dippy replica are keeping Carnegie’s legacy alive — in the arts, in culture, in science, and in education. As a matter of fact, Lego Dippy’s sojourn in Dunfermline was so successful that even after the big red dino was taken down, the Birthplace Museum hosted Bricks 4 Kidz workshops, where children continued using Legos to build models of such favorites as the Stegosaurus and the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex. In Dunfermline, dinosaur fever rages on.

 

It’s January in Glasgow, Scotland, where four technicians and two conservators are crouched on the marble floor at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, carefully piecing together an ancient jigsaw puzzle of sorts. For five days visitors gathered on balconies flanking the dramatically vaulted room watching the work. Before their eyes, 292 plaster bones were transformed into Diplodocus carnegii, a 14-foot-high, 14-foot-wide, 70-foot-long dinosaur skeleton filling the massive Center Hall, where it will hold court through May 6. Meet “Dippy,” as he is better known, the most famous dinosaur in the U.K.

Dippy’s arrival in Scotland, Andrew Carnegie’s birthplace, comes after three stops across the U.K., and prior to that, 12 months of careful work by conservators to prepare the huge — but delicate — object for its epic journey. The magnificent plaster of paris skeleton has never before traveled from its home in London’s Natural History Museum, not since 1905, when it was first unveiled there — the gift of Andrew Carnegie to the British people.

“Dippy is an enduring embodiment of Carnegie’s legacy and mission,” says Eric Dorfman, the Daniel G. and Carole L. Kamin Director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, where the original dinosaur skeleton resides. “He is a beloved treasure because he connects us vividly to Earth’s distant past. Thanks to Carnegie, millions of people have engaged with Dippy intellectually, in the name of science, and emotionally, in the name of wonder.”

 

“Dippy is an enduring embodiment of Carnegie’s legacy and mission. He is a beloved treasure because he connects us vividly to Earth’s distant past. Thanks to Carnegie, millions of people have engaged with Dippy intellectually, in the name of science, and emotionally, in the name of wonder.”

— Eric Dorfman, Director, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh

 

Free to the public at each of its eight stops, the exhibition Dippy on Tour: A Natural History Adventure will travel to every region of the U.K. Just as Andrew Carnegie envisioned when he gifted the cast copy of the original skeleton to the British, Dippy on Tour is meant to spark curiosity about the natural world while helping to bridge differences between peoples with a frankly awe-inspiring symbol of our common history on this planet.

“Dippy has acted as an ambassador for the natural world,” observed Sir Michael Dixon, director of the Natural History Museum, during the opening of the Glasgow exhibition on January 22.

“We are thrilled that Dippy has once again made it safely across the Irish Sea and has now arrived at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow. Dippy on Tour has so far seen record visitor numbers at the three previous venues,” said Dixon, referring to Dorset County Museum in England’s South West, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in the West Midlands, and Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Carnegie’s dinosaur is indeed a phenomenon on the road. In Dorset, Dippy was crowned “tourism champion,” and for the stop in Glasgow, Kelvingrove’s website urges visitors to use public transit to get to the museum because Dippy has proved so popular that “our car park is full from early morning at weekends.”

Dippy’s three-year tour throughout the U.K., its “natural history adventure,” aims to introduce 1.5 million people to this fascinating specimen of evolutionary history in an effort to inspire not only the next generation of scientists but to encourage families to set off on their own natural history adventures. The Kelvingrove exhibition includes information about animals currently under threat, and the steps being taken to protect them through conservation and re-wilding. The museum is also organizing a series of events to encourage visitors to explore its incredible natural history collections and to learn about the “biodiversity right on your doorstep in Glasgow.”

Stateside, the original Dippy, a composite skeleton of bones excavated in Wyoming in 1898, has been on display at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh since 1907. Thought to be between 152 and 154 million years old and perhaps the most famous dinosaur skeleton in the world, the Pittsburgh Diplodocus serves as a beloved mascot for both the museum and the Steel City.

“Carnegie shared knowledge. He did not secret Dippy away after the discovery. He shared him with the world,” said Eric Dorfman. “For many people, Dippy is the definitive dinosaur, the image they imagine when they hear the word. Here at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, where the real Dippy is on view, hundreds of thousands of people of all ages get to marvel at him every year.”

 

 

But Dippy is not simply a gateway to learning about science and our natural world. As William Thomson, Andrew Carnegie’s great-grandson, pointed out at the Kelvingrove Museum opening, Diplodocus carnegii was seen by his great-grandfather as “a symbol and an opportunity.”

“By gifting copies to the heads of state of seven other countries as well as the U.K., Carnegie hoped to demonstrate through mutual interest in scientific discoveries that nations have more in common than what separates them,” he said.

“He used his gifts,” Thomson continued, “in an attempt to open inter-state dialogue on preserving world peace — a form of Dinosaur Diplomacy! Replicas of Diplodocus carnegii are still on display in some of the most famous natural history museums in Europe, but sadly the wellspring of their united history has been largely forgotten. The exhibition sheds some light on this remarkable story.”

An ardent evolutionist, Andrew Carnegie funded paleontology expeditions to the western United States. One such dig uncovered fossils in a Wyoming quarry that would be named Diplodocus carnegii in honor of the expedition’s benefactor. The specimen that was crafted from those fossils has proved to be incredibly important to science as it became the holotype, the original specimen upon which its species is based. Carnegie funded full-size cast models of that Diplodocus dinosaur and gifted them to museums around the world. His goal was twofold: to spread the advances that scientists were making in their understanding of the natural world, but also to celebrate our shared history and findings, both objectives serving in his eyes as a form of diplomacy.

 

 

Carnegie believed that celebrating our shared interests and the commonalities between nations would promote peace and understanding around the world, a noble cause at the very core of all of his philanthropic endeavors. A century after his death that work continues in the many philanthropic and educational organizations he founded.

“Carnegie’s legacy endures in the empowerment of people and the sharing of knowledge,” says Dorfman. “He understood how democracy and equality depend on access to knowledge, to culture, to education. Dippy’s U.K. tour, sharing this wonder with people who might otherwise not have access, is a proper tribute to Carnegie.”

After Dippy’s current residency in Scotland at the Kelvingrove Museum, the dinosaur will be carefully dismantled and packed up to continue on its grand tour. Following Glasgow, Dippy’s upcoming venues are:

• Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle upon Tyne (May 18–October 6, 2019)
• National Museum Cardiff, Wales (October 19, 2019–January 26, 2020)
• Number One Riverside, Rochdale (February 10–June 28, 2020)
• Norwich Cathedral, Norwich (July 11–October 31, 2020)

Today, Norwich Cathedral, where Dippy on Tour concludes, serves as a place of both worship and learning, and is a fitting setting to bridge the scientific and spiritual questions that arise when contemplating our ancient evolutionary past.

“The presence of Dippy in Norwich will naturally bring people from all backgrounds and beliefs and will stimulate questions and debate about creations and the origins of life as well as some of the major issues facing humanity today,” said Jane Hedges, the cathedral’s dean. “It will prompt people to think about aspects such as climate change and food production.”

For Professor Eric Cross, dean of cultural affairs at Newcastle University, Dippy’s residency in the north of England provides a timely opportunity for scholarly research and discussion around environmental issues. Dippy’s visit, he says, “will help illustrate some of the key global challenges such as sustainability and climate change that are central to the University’s research.”

The Diplodocus carnegii cast has been the imposing star of Hintze Hall at London’s Natural History Museum since 1979, although his appearance has changed over the years to reflect advances in our understanding of dinosaur biology and evolution — most recently in 1993.

 

 

Andrew Carnegie’s remarkable philanthropic legacy has also continued to evolve over the years through the ever-evolving work of the organizations he founded. The challenges these institutions address are some of the most intractable and urgent of our time. In this centennial year of his passing, Carnegie institutions worldwide are hosting Forging the Future, a series of events celebrating his commitment to doing “real and permanent good in this world,” while also working to sustain his vision and his legacy into the 21st century.

The wildly popular Dippy on Tour exhibition is part of the Forging the Future series, which commemorates and expands upon Andrew Carnegie’s lasting achievements in peace, education, the arts, science, culture, and philanthropy. The Forging the Future series will culminate with the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy awards ceremony in New York City, on October 16, 2019. Dippy will definitely be there in spirit.