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For immediate release:
October 9, 2006

Andrew Mellon Biographer Will Speak at Carnegie Mellon

Historian David Cannadine, author of the new Andrew W. Mellon biography "Mellon: An American Life," will speak at Carnegie Mellon at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 8.

PITTSBURGH—Award-winning historian David Cannadine, author of the new Andrew W. Mellon biography "Mellon: An American Life," will speak at Carnegie Mellon University at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 8 in the University Center's McConomy Auditorium as part of Carnegie Mellon's University Lecture Series. A public reception and book-signing will precede the lecture at 4:45 p.m. in the University Center's Connan Room. Both events are free and open to the public.

"Mellon: An American Life," published by Knopf, is the most comprehensive account yet of the life of one of Pittsburgh's most famous native sons. Cannadine wrote the biography with the full cooperation of the Mellon family and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

"We are delighted to welcome Professor David Cannadine to Pittsburgh and to Carnegie Mellon to celebrate this new biography," said Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon. "Andrew Mellon's life was a remarkable one, truly an 'American life,' and his complex influence spread from business to economic policy, the arts and education. Carnegie Mellon is part of his enduring philanthropic legacy and we are pleased that a historian of Dr. Cannadine's international reputation is participating in our lecture series this year."

Born in 1855, Andrew Mellon's achievements spanned the worlds of finance, industry, government and philanthropy. At age 27, he assumed ownership of his father's bank, T. Mellon and Sons, and he later organized the Union Trust Company and Union Savings Bank of Pittsburgh. He helped to found several industrial powerhouses, including ALCOA, Koppers and Gulf Oil, and from 1921 until 1932 he was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. He died in 1937.

Mellon was also one of the nation's leading philanthropists. He and his brother, Richard Beatty Mellon, founded the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, which merged with the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1967 to form Carnegie Mellon University. Mellon's most famous gift was a donation of money and artwork that established the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., though Mellon himself did not live to see its opening.

Mellon's children, Ailsa and Paul, continued their family's philanthropic tradition and in 1969 merged their foundations to form the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in their father's honor. The late Paul Mellon was one of Carnegie Mellon's most generous benefactors, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has supported several important university initiatives.

Cannadine is the author and editor of many acclaimed books, including "The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy," which won the Lionel Trilling Prize and the Governors' Award. He has taught at Cambridge and Columbia universities and currently teaches at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London.

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