Swann Fellow Lecture, Tuesday, March 12 in Library of Congress

Were They so Torturous? Reevaluating Modern Surgery's Underdog Story
12:00-1:00 pm Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Swann Fellow Lecture

Dining Room A, 6th Floor Madison Building

Swann Fellow, Zoe Copeman, PhD candidate in Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, argues that the history of surgery relies on the narrative of
surgery's so-called "torturous" past to legitimize the practices of elite, university-trained medical men, reducing the once valued work of middling and lower-class practitioners to quackery. Drawing from the Library of Congress's eighteenth- and nineteenth-century caricatures, her research traces changes in the public perception of surgery and how visual media across disciplines would transform the surgeon (and his tools) into powerful metaphors of European and American modernity. This event will be recorded.

For more information:

Sara W. Duke, Curator, Popular & Applied
Graphic Art, sduk@loc.gov

WaPo articles on Smithsonian human remains collections

Smithsonian should speed up return of human remains, task force says

By Nicole Dungca and Claire Healy

February 23, 2024

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/02/23/smithsonian-return-human-remains-report/

The Collection

A Washington Post investigative series into the Smithsonian's collection of at least 30,700 human bones and other body parts, including more than 250 brains. This series reveals the museum's "racial brain collection," the anthropologist behind its curation and the stories of those whose brains were taken.

Have a tip or story idea about the collection? Email our team at thecollection@washpost.com.

Read the stories

Revealing the Smithsonian's 'racial brain collection'

The Smithsonian's 'bone doctor' scavenged thousands of body parts

After Maura died in 1904, a Smithsonian anthropologist likely took part of her brain. Read the story in English or Filipino

Read the stories

How The Post reported Maura's story

How The Post reported on the Smithsonian's human remains

Key findings from The Post's investigation on the Smithsonian's human remains

Smithsonian returns woman's brain to family 90 years after it was taken

Read the stories

Smithsonian targeted D.C.'s vulnerable to build brain collection

Former employees say Smithsonian resisted action on human remains

Search the Smithsonian's records on human remains

Listen on Post Reports

When Mary died in 1933, her brain was sent to Ales Hrdlicka, the Smithsonian's "bone doctor." The Post couldn't find any records that Mary or her family consented to this. So what happened to Mary's brain? And what is the extent of the Smithsonian's "racial brain collection"?

"Brain desirable," Part 1

"Brain desirable," Part 2

Watch the videos

"Searching for Maura": Animated illustrated reporting. Also available on YouTube.

"Paghahanap kay Maura": Animated illustrated reporting. Also available on YouTube.

How The Post reported on the Smithsonian's human remains. Also available on YouTube.

Order "Searching for Maura" and "Paghahanap kay Maura"

Maura came to St. Louis from the Philippines to be put on display at the 1904 World's Fair. Records suggest that after she fell ill and died, a world-renowned anthropologist took part of her brain. Few people would know what happened to her for more than a century.

Available in English and Filipino. Order your copy now.

Tune in on Washington Post Live

The Post's Nicole Dungca interviews Michael Blakey, a member of the newly created Smithsonian human remains task force, about The Post's year-long investigation and how the organization is reckoning with this history. Watch the interview.

About the reporters

Claire Healy is a freelance journalist and newsroom copy aide who has written for The Post.

Nicole Dungca is an investigative reporter for The Post.

Andrew Ba Tran is an investigative data reporter for The Post.

1/9

Washington Post graphic novel on Maura, free to read

https://wapo.st/3sgQnUC

 

Anatomical collections under attack

Revealing the Smithsonian's 'racial brain collection'

By Nicole Dungca and Claire Healy

Aug. 14 2023

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2023/smithsonian-brains-collection-racial-history-repatriation

'Macabre curiosities': top US medical museum confronts skeletons of its past

Mütter Museum in Philadelphia at centre of ethics dispute over provenance of its collection of skulls, fetuses and body parts

Edward Helmore in New York

Sun 13 Aug 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/13/medical-mutter-museum-philadelphia-specimen-ethics

A Museum of 'Electrifying Frankness' Weighs Dialing It Down

The Mütter Museum, a beloved 19th-century collection of medical curiosities and human remains in Philadelphia, wants to adopt a more "respectful" approach. Some fans won't have it.

By Franz Lidz

Aug. 13, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/science/mutter-medical-museum.html

NMHM featured in WaPo

Get bitten by bug fever this Saturday at the medical museum

Perspective by John Kelly

Columnist

June 7, 2023

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/06/07/bugapalooza-military-bug-museum/

Civil War doctor Mary Walker coming to a quarter in 2024

https://www.aarp.org/home-family/friends-family/info-2023/notable-women-to-appear-on-quarters.html

https://www.coinnews.net/2023/03/31/designs-recommended-for-2024-american-women-quarters/

Exhibit at Walter Reed Highlights African Americans in Civil War Medicine

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/437560/exhibit-walter-reed-highlights-african-americans-civil-war-medicine

To kick off Black History Month, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center welcomes Dr. Robert Slawson, from the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, as a guest docent Feb. 2 for an exhibit highlighting the contributions of African Americans in Civil War medicine. The exhibit is on display throughout February on the first floor of the America Building (Bldg. 19).... click through the link for the rest of the article.

Scott Schoner, former Army Medical Dept. Museum curator has passed away

Scott Schoner, a former Army Medical Dept. Museum curator, passed away around January 23 2023, in Cookeville, TN of complications of congestive heart failure and RSV. Rather than medical history, Schoner's true love was the  American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, and he hoped to create a foundation to continue the documentary history work he was doing after his death.

Hunterian museum removes Irish Giant from display

London Museum Removes 'Irish Giant' Skeleton From Display

The remains of Charles Byrne, a 7-foot-7 man who died in 1783, will no longer be on public view, an effort to address what one official at the Hunterian Museum called a historical wrong.

By Claire Moses

Jan. 21, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/world/europe/charles-byrne-irish-giant-museum.html

Condoms on exhibit in French National Archives

https://entre-temps.net/lhistoire-sous-vitrine-capotes-en-vitrine/

The former AFIP in the news

The founding as the Army Medical Museum is mentioned in passing, AFIP's name is not, and the museum's continuing existence as a separate entity isn't either.

Inside Google's Quest to Digitize Troops' Tissue Samples

by James Bandler Dec. 12,2022

https://www.propublica.org/article/google-human-tissue-jpc-military

Centers for Disease Control Museum on Atlas Obscura podcast

Visit a museum inside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, which documents how public health officials have slowed the spread of disease through history.

Dec 2 2021

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7bGNhYFdLrb0miAOrF7U4H?si=YEsU_0-sTeyzch1JQQrg8w

FDA History Office Recruiting Museum Specialist

The US Food and Drug Administration's History Office is currently recruiting a Museum Specialist at the GS-09 level:  https://www.usajobs.gov/Search/Results?k=museum%20specialist&p=1  The position is located at the FDA headquarters in Silver Spring, MD.  The announcement is only open this week, from 11/8-11/15. 

Civil War medical photos show up in the oddest places

520 Weeks – Moritat on "All-Star Western:" "Oh, You Can Draw Hats!"

By Brian Salvatore | October 4th, 2021
http://www.multiversitycomics.com/interviews/520-weeks-moritat/

Moritat:You know, the droop in the eye? I had reference for him too, and after that, it was easy. I've mostly used a lot of the old Mathew Brady Civil War photographs to kind of get that rugged kind of look, you know, color kind of slightly frayed gun belts.

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Medicinsk Museion reopens this week

THE MUSEUM OPENS AGAIN On Saturday 24 April, we will finally open the doors to our good and curious guests. Our staff is well on its way to sprucing up, putting up signs and getting ready for a safe and secure reopening. Remember bandages and Coronapas. Admission tickets must continue to be purchased in advance, and we will open ticket sales on Wednesday 21 April. Buy admission tickets here. // The museum re-opens April 24. Admission tickets must be purchased in advance. Please remember a face mask and your Corona passport.

What to do with the Morton Crania Collection?

What Should Museums Do With the Bones of the Enslaved?

As one museum has pledged to return skulls held in an infamous collection, others, including the Smithsonian, are reckoning with their own holdings of African-American remains.

By Jennifer Schuessler

April 20, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/arts/design/museums-bones-smithsonian.html

Morton Crania Collection to be partly repatriated

Penn Museum apologizes for its 'unethical' collection of human skulls and says it will repatriate remains of Black Philadelphians and others

• Stephan Salisbury The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)
• Apr 12, 2021

https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/penn-museum-apologizes-for-its-unethical-collection-of-human-skulls-and-says-it-will-repatriate/article_703c3728-5ca5-584f-a9fe-4af584df215f.html

Army medical history exhibit opens at Frontier Army Museum

Museum exhibit spotlights military medical milestones

Source:  ftleavenworthlamp.com

Author:  Katie Peterson

https://www.ftleavenworthlamp.com/community/2021/04/15/museum-exhibit-spotlights-military-medical-milestones/

To view the exhibit online with FAM OnCell, visit https://frontierarmymuseum.oncell.com/en/site-list-80713.html.

Dr Mary Walker comic book released

Groundbreaking Civil War Doctor Showcased

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

https://www.ausa.org/news/groundbreaking-civil-war-doctor-showcased

Some of Walker's possessions are in the National Museum of Health and Medicine