#the mutter museum | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

idohistorysometimes · 3 months

Text

(Holds up megaphone) censoring the bodies of the disabled isn't fixing the problem Kate Quinn, nor is using random groups of people as buzzwords

#history #museum #history museum #museam #living history #museum work #historian #the mütter museum #the mutter museum #save the mutter #medical history #ableism

9 notes · View notes

forthegothicheroine · 2 months

Text

At the gift shop at the Mutter Museum, I got a little plush anatomical heart, and the little old guy at the register went on a whole monologue about it. Jokes about how people would try to steal hearts, jokes about different forms of execution, jokes about what parts of the body remained after execution, all with a friendly attitude and a Philly accent.

I think I met a Discworld Igor.

#discworld #sort of #mutter museum

63 notes · View notes

larkandkatydid · 1 year

Text

I did not stick around for the 12pm ‘mystery dissection’ so it will have to remain mysterious.

#I hope it’s a crossover with the mutter museum down the street #and it’s a two headed calf #but my money is on chicken heart

127 notes · View notes

forgetmenot-mymoon · 2 months

Text

Scolosis surgery

——

Have you noticed how many act like surgery is a death setence? In a couple months k willl get scolosis surgery. There’s so many websites And organizations

Saying “Oh you don’t need it,”

“Come to our camp we’ll straighten it!”

“We know the secrets!”

“Well put your kid on a diet and some exercises”

It’s all really fucking weird.

People calling the surgery invasive, which I guess it is? However I don’t see it that way

But people are so scared of it, kinda like vaccines.

My surgeon is very hopefull, it seems more benefits then side effects and is the only option, but the ineternet goes insane saying it’s the worse

I don’t see how

I am already in pain and twisted, I don’t see how it could get worse from surgeon

Will I lose mobility? Yes not much thought it’ll be annoying but it’s better

Will there be pain? Yes for s time

Always? According to some internet users yes. However I already have pain so o don’t think that would change much.

I know there are risks but I don’t care

It’s the only thing I can do unless I wanna travel and beg fake doctors to fix me.

After the surgery I’ll be taller which is cool.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, it all could go wrong but I’ll just live with it. I’ll survive.

Bye Bye Snake Spine

#writing #scoliosis #surgery #vent? ish?#scoliosis surgery #spinal fusion #spinalhealth #snake spine #im so sad i wont be able to donate my spine to the mutter museum #posting will probably slow for awhile #especially after the queues are all posted

6 notes · View notes

porcelain-rob0t · 5 months

Text

you go to medical anomaly museums out of morbid curiosity and to test your squeamishness, i go to medical anomaly museums to have a profound feeling of empathy and connection to my fellow human being across time and medical science. we are not the same.

#you go to the mutter museum to cringe and gawk at ew yucky diseased bodies #i go there and i want to cry because i recognize the humanity thats there and i suddenly feel empathy again #the human experience is gross we are all gross and nasty and disgusting #we get sick and our bodies fail us #there is nothing more human than that #and i love humanity #we are all connected in the horror of having a body

7 notes · View notes

naomiknight-17 · 2 months

Text

I've decided for my 15th wedding anniversary, I'd like to visit the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia

I have... a bit less than 2 years to save up for the trip

I wanna see the soap lady

#no idea if i can make it happen or not but. i really wanna #mutter museum #mütter museum #mod post #anniversary plans #we didn't get to do anything the last few years because of all the pandemic stuff #maybe... maybe in 2 more years we can make it happen. maybe #also i never travel like ever. so this is a big crazy idea for me

5 notes · View notes

letthew00kiewin · 1 year

Text

Basement selfies at angles are really fun and I don't look terrible so here's me.

#selfies #selfie #me #personal #beard #mutter museum

28 notes · View notes

niche-pastiche · 7 months

Text

If you're in Philadelphia or can get there please go support the Mutter Mütter Museum at the town hall on October 17th. You have to be there in order to participate so if you know anyone in the area who loves and cares about this beautiful, respectful museum and the work it does please let them know.

More information can be found at the link.

#mutter museum #Mütter Museum #museums #Philadelphia #philly #disability education #this place is absolutely fantastic y'all #they got rid of the new director that was deadset on ruining things #this museum is THE most respectful and thoughtful one I know of #if you go please ask them to make their youtube videos publicly available again they were such an amazing educational resource

7 notes · View notes

theremin-poisoning · 11 months

Text

Are you following the Mutter Museum controversy? Please consider signing this petition - pulling the material from the internet is just book burning for the modern age.

#mutter museum #book burning #books #education #petition #fuck republikkkans #republicans #the dumbing of America #philly #philadelphia #censorship #resist #resistance #history #weird #humans are weird #weird wonderful world #weird history

12 notes · View notes

cookinguptales · 1 year

Text

*watching the new puppet history and trying to push down my feelings about the resurrectionist business and how it disproportionately targeted people from marginalized groups (especially POC, the impoverished, and the disabled) because their families generally couldn't afford to protect their loved ones' bodies and they could get more money for "unusual" corpses, resulting in events like the 1788 Doctors' Riot in NYC, and how the treatment of a marginalized group's dead reflects the dehumanization that they faced in life*

but sure okay it also helped with medical science

#ask me about my feelings about the mutter museum and charles byrne and other hunterian medical museums #because boy do I have them #puppet history #watcher

51 notes · View notes

idohistorysometimes · 9 months

Text

As a follow-up to my Mütter Museum post

Why do most museums seem deathly allergic to consulting the groups they claim to be doing things on behalf of?

Like with the case of the Mütter: why the hell is this ethical conversation being dominated by 2 people who do not have any connection to the disabled, black, or native community? Why are they talking over the LITERAL PEOPLE WHO DONATED THEIR BODIES AND OR ORGANS TO THE MUSEUM alongside members of the disabled, black, and Native communities in relation to exhibits and their potentially problematic aspects? Why are these groups not being consulted to fix these problems?

Why the hell has there been a several-month-long kerfuffle that has resulted in nothing being repatriated? Why am I now seeing disabled bodies or bodies exhibiting an extreme/atypical pathology being called "gross" or its discussion/presence likened to a freakshow or being called "inappropriate"? Why is there so little transparency? Why were stories from people who did consent taken down in the name of consent?

This is a genuine ethical discussion but not when it is being controlled unilaterally by 1 clandestine group who seems to just comprise of 2 people.

Disabled and chronically ill voices need to be included

Black voices need to be included

Native voices need to be included

The people in the collection and their families need to be included.

Every aspect of this complex issue needs to be taken into account, not just 1.

If disabled bodies are too icky to look at and they are unwilling to give back the remains that are being asked to be returned: the current administration at the Mütter needs to step down. And this goes for all other museums. If your ethical conversation results in the exclusion of the very groups you are talking about and the removal of their stories from the narrative in favor of comfort you need to be removed from your position at said institution.

You are not being inclusive, you are disregarding the voices of the people who actually have a horse in this race while stigmatizing the overall conversation surrounding both ethics and diversities of the human body.

#history #museum #history museum #museam #medical history #save the mutter #the mutter museum #the Mütter museum #ableism #racism #repatriation #museum work

15 notes · View notes

jamteayang · 1 year

Photo

a field guide to the supernatural! yes! it is a thing

If you like Dracula Daily, consider: a non-fiction book on vampires! Hanging with Vampires: A Totally Factual Field Guide to the Supernatural is for the book fair kids, the spooky kids, and the mythology kids. It’s got weird science, eerie history, supernatural legends from all over the world, and even a garlic bread recipe.

I had a blast editing this one. Of course, the author (Insha Fitzpatrick, an absolute star) and I had to hit the Mutter Museum’s Dracula exhibit together and bring along an ARC of Hanging with Vampires.

This weird little supernatural field guide is out in the world now, so if you know a spooky nerd kid in your life who would love this, you can get it wherever books are sold. Here’s a bookshop link, for convenience!

#dracula daily #dracula #mutter museum #bram stoker #booklr #hanging with vampires

9 notes · View notes

julieschulerart · 5 months

Text

Conjoined Twins. Instant Print Art. https://jschulerart.etsy.com/listing/1454856148

#art #painting #medical specimen #skeleton #conjoined #twins #mutter museum #oddity #anatomy

2 notes · View notes

picklesquash · 11 months

Note

Hey dude! I have a question about the Mutter Museum controversy.

I certainly understand reviewing the exhibits to see what can be done to minimize the ongoing damage of colonialism. (Indigenous remains could be repatriated for example.) But what would happen if they decided to take down an exhibit of suspicious/unpleasant origins that doesn't have a clear origin?

For example, I saw a lot of skulls in the wall of skulls that have plaques that say something like: "Italy. Unknown Adult Male. Highwayman. Hanged 1832." Would they somehow try to track down that person's last living relative? Would they respectfully bury the remains somewhere? Would they just take them off public view and put them in labeled boxes in a storeroom?

Is it considered bad in the museum world to display anything that was probably obtained by grave robbing or buying up the bodies of dead criminals/destitute people who died of illness in a hospital? Is it because it's seen as condoning those practices, or because it's just disrespectful to the people who didn't get to consent that their bodies be experimented on and gawked at for 100 years?

Anyway, sorry this is a super long ask. I live in Philly now and there's a lot of public buzz around this so I'm interested in your take as a museum professional. Feel free to answer/not answer as convenient!!

Hey bud, it's good to hear from you!!! I want to disclaim that I'm not the foremost expert in any of this and it's actually a relatively new front of discussion in the museum world, but you pretty much got it!

The example you gave, an unnamed person who was hanged for a crime they may or may not have committed (who's to say with no further evidence)- that would be an instant alert for me that this person almost certainly didn't consent to having their body displayed forever in a museum thousands of miles away and hundreds of years later. I think all three things you listed: tracking down descendants, reburying the remains, or "burying" them in storage- are all real possibilities.

Unfortunately, the most likely is "burying" the remains in a collections storage room somewhere (basically hiding- my personal opinion again, but I also usually don't see the purpose in keeping something accessioned in a museum's collection if the public can't interact with it in some way). As you can probably tell, I don't think it's the the best solution, but arguably slightly better than being out on exhibit. Next would be reburying- though that gets complicated because where, when, and who's involved? Hunting down descendants or relatives is the best in my opinion, but also the toughest- especially because it seems like there'd be an awful lot of research or DNA work involved in the case you listed. Still, this usually ends up crossing over with reburying, especially in the cases I've seen with Native remains.

As for your second question about grave robbing or handling the remains of people who were criminals, poor, etc- yes, I think it's safe to say the growing attitude in the museum world is that it's not a cool thing to do. This definitely wasn't always the attitude, and I think that's part of the problem ongoing with the Mütter right now. I would say the arguments around it tend to fall into the second camp of not having consent- in my time as a museum curator, I used to be unable to display like...paintings and other things just because someone back in the day didn't get the right paperwork (written consent) filled out by the donor. The same principals apply for human remains, although I'd argue to an even higher standard considering they're....you know, people.

To wrap up my ramble, I think it's okay when people deliberately donate their bodies for the purpose of display and exhibition. That's their decision to make, and if the museum agrees at the time they make an agreement, there you go! But I think the heart of this whole issue really lies with the fact that for most of history, the bodies that were being displayed or dissected or used for medical education were stolen in one way or another. So many of them belonged to people who suffered injustices and had their voices silenced or suppressed in life, so who are we to do that in death as well? I think there's much better ways to tell their stories than to deprive them of proper rest or burial.

#grace i'm so sorry i can't figure out how to answer this privately #i think tumblr is being weird and changing stuff (again)#let me know if you don't want this up here #i think you asked some really fantastic and valuable questions though #this is literally all i wanted from wading into the trenches on this issue......reasonable conversation lol #museums #museum ethics #mutter museum

5 notes · View notes

itspronouncedpopsicles · 11 months

Text

An excellent Twitter thread on why the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia is reviewing they’re collection because housing human remains when there is no record of them giving consent to be displayed is important

#museums #mutter museum

3 notes · View notes

hoochieblues · 9 months

Text

For anyone following the Protect the Mütter Museum initiative, not only is the petition nearly up to 35k, you can now get shirts designed by a local artist, with proceeds going to the campaign.

#mutter museum #protect the mütter

2 notes · View notes