Carnegie Museum of Natural History

One of the Four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

The Stories We Keep: Bringing the World to Pittsburgh

The Stories We Keep: Bringing the World to Pittsburgh banner

Now Open | R.P. Simmons Family Gallery

When Andrew Carnegie founded the museum more than 125 years ago, he sought to “bring the world to Pittsburgh,” and today, the museum cares for over 22 million objects and specimens from around the world. But why do natural history museums collect objects and specimens? How do they care for them? What is their purpose? The Stories We Keep: Bringing the World to Pittsburgh explores these big questions about natural history museums through five distinct stories featuring the vast Carnegie Museum of Natural History collection. 

Through hands-on games and activities, expansive collection displays, and digital experiences, The Stories We Keep: Bringing the World to Pittsburgh invites you to consider what it means to collect and why natural history museum collections matter. In this exhibition, you will:

• Discover stories from past and present scientific expeditions to Angola.

• Encounter the Baron Ernest de Bayet collection of invertebrate fossils, one of the museum’s earliest and largest acquisitions.

• Create your own collection drawer, play an insect guessing game, and browse archival photos.

• Uncover 1898-1922 museum director William J. Holland’s role in shaping the museum into a world-class institution. 

• Get to know the scientists who collect, care for, and study the 13 million specimens in the Invertebrate Zoology collection, and why each bug in the collection is a data point that helps us understand our world.

• Learn about Indigenous guides like Paul Commanda (Nbisiing) and George Carey (Omuskego) who led museum expeditions across northern Ontario, Quebec, and Labrador.*

• Watch conservation and collections staff care for collections in the Visible Lab.

• Listen to clips from season two of the museum’s We Are Nature podcast and see objects and specimens featured in the episodes.

Plan Your Visit

We Are Nature

Dive deeper into the museum’s impressive collection on season two of the We Are Nature podcast, a companion to The Stories We Keep: Bringing the World to Pittsburgh. While the first season centered on collective climate action, the second season features items from the museum’s collections as windows into the science of the Anthropocene, as discussed by curators, collection managers, and community members. Listen to the podcast here.

Science Stories

Take a deeper look at the museum collections in the words of the experts who care for and study them.

The Stories We Keep: Bringing the World to Pittsburgh is the second installment of The Stories We Keep exhibition series, following The Stories We Keep: Conserving Objects from Ancient Egypt, which went on view in 2024. 

* All content in this section of The Stories We Keep: Bringing the World to Pittsburgh was created in collaboration with North Bay Museum. Original content for the exhibition OUR GUIDES WERE REALLY GOING PLACES NISHNAABEG E-PAAMWINGEWAAD WAASA ZHAAWAG was curated and generously shared by Joan McLeod Shabogesic, Naomi Hehn, and Kirsten Greer. All of this content was edited, with permission, from the GUIDES exhibition or created in partnership with the Nipissing First Nation, Dokis First Nation, Nipissing University, and the North Bay Museum.