Crucible of Change: Carnegie Tech and World War I

My last exhibit with Carnegie Mellon was two years in the making. I was the editorial director on Crucible of Change: Carnegie Tech and World War I, which including writing the full exhibit, helping develop the story structure, creating the content marketing plan, and developing the structure and editorial drafts for the 40-page exhibit publication inspired by The Saturday Evening Post.

In November 1917, Carnegie Institute of Technology transformed virtually overnight. Soldiers began arriving on the campus. Wooden barracks rose on the Cut. Classrooms became workshops. Students drilled with rifles before breakfast. The school was only twelve years old. The faculty weren’t accustomed to moving at the military’s pace. But America needed engineers fast, and Carnegie Tech had three days to figure it out.

“We were forced to do things in a way entirely unorthodox,” Dean A.W. Tarbell later wrote. “We were surprised to find the results not half bad.”

By war’s end, more than eight thousand soldiers had trained here. They learned to repair airplanes, operate radios, shoe horses, and lead military bands. President Hammerschlag traveled to Washington to revolutionize the American Expeditionary Force’s supply shipping methods overseas. Women took on roles they’d been told weren’t for them, but then lost those jobs the week the war ended.

The war changed everything. Carnegie Tech evolved from a small technical school into a nationally recognized training center, demonstrating its ability to meet impossible deadlines, embrace radical ideas, and solve big problems. 

Those qualities—that willingness to improvise, to take risks, to move fast when it matters—became part of who we are.

A Crucible of Change explores how this pivotal moment influenced the early days of Carnegie Tech and how the school helped shape America’s response to its first modern war.

Exhibit Magazine

Download the 40-page exhibit magazine inspired by The Saturday Evening Post.