“The museum has taken its world-class fossil collection and created something truly worthy of its scientific importance. What’s more, it has created an experience that everyone can revel in, learn from, and simply enjoy.”
- David Hillenbrand
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Photo: Josh Franzos
In 1909, then Carnegie Museum of Natural History Director William Holland received a telegram from Earl Douglass, the paleontologist he had hired to go find more dinosaurs for Pittsburgh, proclaiming,“We are certainly in luck. I never have heard of the likes of this!” Earl Douglass was referring to the huge repository of dinosaur bones that he and his team had just uncovered in Utah. But he could have just as well been talking about Dinosaurs in Their Time, our new dinosaur exhibit at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
The last few weeks have seen a frenzy of activity surrounding the Phase One opening of Dinosaurs in Their Time. A kick-off gala on November 16 drew more than 600 people to our Oakland facility. Then, in a special members-only preview that nearly kept the museum open around the clock from November 17 through November 19, close to 15,000 members came to walk with the dinosaurs. They didn’t want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime experience: to gather with fellow members and celebrate the grand achievement of their museum. And the exhibit didn’t disappoint.
It’s difficult to sum up the historic and scientific significance of this wonderful exhibit. But this issue of Carnegie magazine does a wonderful job of taking us back to our dinosaurs’ storied roots and also taking us inside Dinosaurs in Their Time—to meet its residents and learn more about their new, true-to-life surroundings.
I hope you will all share our pride in the Museum of Natural History’s spectacular accomplishment. The museum has taken its world-class fossil collection and created something truly worthy of its scientific importance. What’s more, it has created an experience that everyone can revel in, learn from, and simply enjoy.
I speak often about the four Carnegie Museums being places where we can, and should, explore worlds that we don’t otherwise get to experience in our daily lives. That we have yet another magnificent example of this is, indeed, something to celebrate. That this new exhibit is, without a doubt, the very best of its kind anywhere in the world is something we should all acknowledge with great pride and satisfaction.
As members and donors—and, above all, friends of Carnegie Museums—your support continues to be instrumental in the development of our museums and the ways in which they will inspire and educate for years to come. Just think about all we have achieved already, together.
Thank you!
David M. Hillenbrand, President Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh |