Hamann Museum of Comparative Anatomy and Anthropology
(1923 -1960)

As Carl Hamann and Thomas Todd’s collecting efforts succeeded, the idea of building a museum within the Department of Anatomy at Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine took form. Space was set aside for a teaching collection soon after Hamann’s arrival in Cleveland. Thanks to both his and Todd’s collecting abilities, this area was soon filled and finding space for incoming specimens became a problem. Preliminary plans for a new museum were approved by the Western Reserve University Board of Trustees in 1921.

They became real when a new medical building was donated to Western Reserve University in 1922. Both Hamann and Todd had input into the design of the building which opened in 1923. The impact on the collections of a custom-designed layout was immediate. The increased storage space and updated equipment worked with the new floor plan to speed the rate of specimen collection and vary the types of research.

Collection documentation became more consistent and varied after this date. As specimens, casts and other teaching objects were placed on exhibit in the museum area, the Hamann Museum of Comparative Anatomy and Anthropology came into being. Dedicated in 1923, it was extensively used by staff, visiting researchers and students until the end of the 1930's

T.W. Todd died in 1938. By this point over 180 publications had been written based on the collections. For a while, museum collection activities continued. But without Todd’s driving force, curation standards declined. With the advent of WWII, the University’s attention and funding were turned elsewhere. At the end of the war, there was a call for a revision of the medical curriculum at Western Reserve University. In order to make time for other subjects the amount of the student’s time devoted to anatomy was cut. The need for the museum became less pressing.

As a result, the museum was closed and the teaching collection was put into storage. The condition of many of the specimens and their documentation deteriorated. The stored collection was moved several times. Several times groups of valuable soft tissue specimens had to be destroyed because they had gone bad and could not be refurbished. Scholarly work continued on the collections but the output was greatly diminished and the collection fell into disarray.

Bibliography

Brown, K.L. ed. 1977. Medicine in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County: 1810-1976.
Academy of Medicine of Cleveland: Cleveland , Ohio

Cobb, W.M. 1932. Human Archives. Department of Anatomy, Western Reserve University: Cleveland, Ohio

Klein, Z.L. 1979. Recollections from the years 1932-1936 in the School of Medicine of Western Reserve University. Case Western Reserve Medical Alumni Bulletin 42:6 -7.

Todd, T.W. 1925. Western Reserve University School of Medicine Laboratory of Anatomy. Methods and Problems of Education. Third Series. New York: The Rockefeller Foundation.

Todd, T.W. 1930. The Hamann Museum of Comparative Anthropology and Anatomy.
Western Reserve University Bulletin # 13.

Waite, F.C. 1946. Western Reserve University Centennial History of the School of Medicine. Cleveland: Western Reserve University Press

____ 1936. Hamann Museum of Western Reserve University. Bulletin of the International Association of Medical Museums, 16:104