This funding builds upon two previous phases of support from Carnegie Corporation that enabled the Center, formerly known as the Oral History Research Office, to undertake The Carnegie Corporation of New York Oral History Project. This third phase is focused on exploring the grantmaker’s most recent 14 years, which coincides with the arrival and leadership of current President Vartan Gregorian. The interviews that will be collected will add new perspectives to the already vast archive of Carnegie Corporation's 100-year history held at Columbia University.
"We are thrilled and eager to undertake this project, especially at this important point in the organization's history," said Mary Marshall Clark, Director of CCOH. "It is areal opportunity to capture the history of one of the key philanthropic organizations in American history, at a time of well-deserved contemplation and reflection on a century of work."
The first two phases of the Carnegie Corporation Oral History Project, which began in 1966 and was completed in 2000, resulted in more than 700 hours of audio interviews, 60 hours of video interviews, and 14,171 pages of transcript covering Carnegie Corporation's evolution and expansion into a global philanthropy in the areas of teaching and education, international peace, and science and technology. CCOH anticipates completing 150 hours of additional interviews during this third phase.
The oral history project has already covered a wide range of social and cultural developments in the United States and abroad - from the birth of the children's television show Sesame Street to the Carnegie Corporation's sustained support of antiapartheid efforts in South Africa.
Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic foundation created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to do "real and permanent good in this world." http://carnegie.org/