Records of the Office of the Curator

The collection, 1865-1922, contains correspondence and reports of curators of the Mutter Museum, particularly Thomas Hewson Bache, and letters received by members, generally chairmen, of the Committee on the Mutter Museum, including S. Weir Mitchell, William Hunt, George McClellan, and Henry Morris. Some drafts of minutes and reports of ,the committee are included. The collection documents the early growth and development of the Mutter Museum.

Series 1, records of the curators, includes two volumes of Thomas Hewson Bache's outgoing letters and files of letters received, 1865-1883. The letterbooks also contain reports of the Committee on the Mutter Museum for 1871, 1872, and 1880. Most of the correspondence concerns the purchase, donation, or fabrication of pathological and anatomical specimens, models, and books to augment the collections of the Mutter Museum and the transportation and importation of these items from Europe. Major correspondents are model makers J, Ledion, F. G. Lemercier, F. V. Rohon, and C. Sappey; George A. Otis, Surgeon General of the United States; and bookseller Benjamin Franklin Stevens. Also included are payment authorizations by the College of Physicians for museum bills; two legal opinions on interpretations of the Mutter Trust; and an undated inventory of items in the curator's room. One folder of letters received by Guy Hinsdale, 1885-1898, is included, Also included are four monthly reports made by curator Henry Morris to the Committee on the Mutter Museum, 1920-1926, These reports list the number of visitors, acquisitions, and use of the collections.

Series 2 contains records of members of the Committee on the Mutter Museum, 1865-1922. Series 2.1 contains letters, 1865-1866, of William W. Keen, written from Germany to S. Weir Mitchell, describing anatomical and pathological specimens, photographs, and books available for purchase. Keen includes a catalogue of Carl Thiersch's transparent microscopic injected preparations. Also included is a letter of Owen Wister, offering items of his father, Owen Jones Wister, to S. Weir Mitchell for the Mutter Museum.

Letters of William Hunt, chairman of the museum committee, are in Series 2.2. Included is a series of letters written to Hunt by Thomas Hewson Bache while in Europe, 1882-1883. Bache describes the difficulty of obtaining and transporting specimens, several purchases made for the museum, and the construction of museum cases. Also included is a series of letters from H. D. Schmidt, 1880-1885, describing and selling his preparations of surgical anatomy specimens and microscopic sections. Schmidt describes the procedure for obtaining microscopic sections of the human brain, The series also contains a folder of letters received of George McClellan and correspondence of Henry Morris with descendants of financier Robert Morris on genealogical matters.

Series 2 also contains drafts and copies of museum committee minutes, describing gifts and financial matters, 1913-1922, and reports made by the committee to the College of Physicians, 1897-1914, listing donors, use of the museum, collections, and financial matters. One notable item is a description of the move of the museum to the College's new building on 22nd Street in 1909. One folder of miscellaneous material contains remarks made by D, G. Brinton on the Englemann collection of skull deformities donated to the Mutter Museum by S. Weir Mitchell.