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By Kimberly Powell

Located in Oakland, between the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, The Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh (4400 Forbes Avenue) is Andrew Carnegie's lasting gift to Pittsburgh. Founded in 1895 as The Carnegie Institute, the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh is comprised of the Carnegie Library, the Carnegie Music Hall, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

The Carnegie Library system, comprised of the main branch and numerous neighborhood branches, is free to all Allegheny County residents and includes extensive music and art collections and lending materials.

The Carnegie Museum of Art features distinguished masterpieces of French Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and 19th Century American art. The large collection of paintings prints, and sculpture by old masters shares space with works by contemporary artists in the Scaife Gallery.

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is one of the six largest natural history museums in the country. Called the "home of the dinosaurs" for its famed skeletons of Tyrannosaurus Rex, Diplodocus, and other extraordinary fossils, the museum also displays more than five million specimens from all areas of natural history and anthropology. One of the newest exhibits, The Hall of American Indians, brings Native America past and present to life with over 1000 rare artifacts in the midst of interactive exhibits and a planetarium style theater.

Pittsburgh History
A few blocks east of downtown Pittsburgh in the bustling Strip District is the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. Located in the former Chautauqua Lake Ice Company building, the seven-story Senator John Heinz Regional History Center houses a comprehensive archive of America's early-20th century push to progress, and the people, both workers and managers, entrepreneurs, and laborers, who made it happen.

The History Center's second floor permanent exhibit, Points in Time; Building a Life in Western Pennsylvania, 1750-Today, features life-sized reconstructions of three homes, each representing a different period of Western Pennsylvania history. other floors contain a children's Discover Place and changing exhibits. The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania and its 27,000 volume library, archives, and museum of Western Pennsylvania history also make their home at the History Center.

Traces of Pittsburgh's ethnic heritage are found in the University of Pittsburgh's Nationality Classrooms. These 24 rooms, which encircle the Gothic Commons Room on the first floor of the Cathedral of Learning, were presented to the University as gifts from the various ethnic groups that settled in Allegheny County. Designed by artists and architects from the nations represented, the rooms are authentic examples of Classical, Byzantine, Romanesque, Renaissance, Tudor, and Empire styles.

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Article ©2003 Kimberly Powell. Licensed to About.com.