Friends! Country folk! Science nerds! Lend me your ears (ok not literally, put those back on)!
You’ve probably seen my face at this point and know that if there’s one thing I will consistently spam you about, it’s the Mütter museum.
The Mütter houses some of my fave people in the world- permanently- and it fully changed my life.
Recently the Mütter removed all of its online content, citing ethics and respect as their reasoning. However, the current leadership of the college of physicians of Philadelphia (who owns the museum) have made it abundantly clear that they do not like the museum at all. It makes them uncomfortable.
But it’s deeper than that. The current CEO has been heard saying that her life “would be so much easier if only physicians were allowed in the museum”. She has said that she hates walking through the museum. She said that “infotainment” was not a good reason for video content by the museum.
The current executive director of the museum has caused 13 staff to leave since she was hired in September 2022. She has done this at other museums (the Michener, for one). She really is pushing an accreditation for the museum. This would require the Mütter to rid itself of all of its original cabinetry- yes, the cabinets dating from the turn of the 20th century- and make more than $1 million in changes. But here’s the kicker! The fellows of the college of physicians of Philadelphia have actually discussed this at length in the past, and decided that it was not worth the time and money to do, because the Mütter is NOT suffering from a lack of visitors. In fact, there are so many visitors that you need to have a timed ticket to go now.
Neither one of these folks knew that the museum had an audio tour, nor that they had accessible mornings for folks with sensory issues, and “please touch” tours with amazing replicas of the remains and objects within the museum, so that as many people as possible could access the knowledge at the museum.
These people hate the museum and cite accessibility and ethics as their reasoning for content removal. However, if you talk to anyone who has ever watched any videos produced by the Mütter, they’d tell ya (and have told me on insta, and written full ass dissertations on the topic in one case, wherein they compared Mütter content with the content of the British museum and found that the Mütter was the only one that came out equal in terms of content and quality) that every person and artefact were treated with the utmost respect in them.
This is not a museum that highlights and praises colonial practices. This is a museum that helps folks with different disabilities, conditions, and experiences feel seen and respected. It teaches us about the history of medicine, in all of its nitty gritty detail, and let’s us discuss the issues inherent within it. This is a museum that celebrates the birthdays of its residents, when they are known- or at least it did, before the new leadership took over.
And the leadership want to change that. They want to gut the museum because THEY don’t like it, and assume that everyone feels just like they do.
So many of you have shared and commented on my previous posts, and I’m hoping that that will translate into you signing this change.org petition my colleagues and I created.
Remember with change.org that you have to click through the email they send you to confirm the signature. You do NOT need to donate, and in fact, please don’t. We don’t want your money. We want to show the board of trustees and the leadership of the museum that the public cares for the place they want to destroy.
For more info (and so you don’t just take my word for it), see https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-mutter-museum-online-exhibits-taken-down-why/
Thank you for listening to me yell from my soapbox. Please share this widely, and please sign.