Ilja Nieuwland - Made Local

Join Ilja Nieuwland, author and expert paleontologist, and Matthew Lamanna, associate curator and Head of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, for a lively discussion about American Dinosaur Abroad: A Cultural History of Carnegie’s Plaster Diplodocus, the untold story of Andrew Carnegie’s prized dinosaur and its influence on European culture.

In early July 1899, a team of paleontologists sponsored by Andrew Carnegie discovered the fossil remains in Wyoming of what was then the longest and largest dinosaur on record. Named after its benefactor, the Diplodocus carnegii—or Dippy, as it’s known today—was shipped to Pittsburgh and later mounted and unveiled at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1907. Carnegie’s pursuit of dinosaurs in the American West and the ensuing dinomania of the late nineteenth century coincided with his broader political ambitions to establish a lasting world peace and avoid further international conflict.