PowerPoint slides accompanying my talk at ASA in October 2015. More information about the panel is available online: http://tinyurl.com/qb6ra4a

1. Remains After War:
The Politics of Bodily Display in the
Army Medical Museum’s
Ford’s Theater Location
Ashley Bowen-Murphy, MA
PhD Candidate, American Studies
Brown University

2. “Field Day,” CP 1043, National Museum of Health and Medicine, Contributed by R.B. Bontecou.

3. “Field Day,” CP 1043, National Museum of Health and Medicine, Contributed by R.B. Bontecou.
Many and many a putrid heap have I had dug out of trenches where they had been
buried, in the supposition of an everlasting rest… and ghoul-like work have I done,
amid surrounding gatherings of wondering surgeons, and scarcely less wondering
doctors. But all saw that I was in earnest and my example was infections. By going thus
from corps hospital to corps hospital, a real interest was excited as to the Museum
work, and an active co-operation was eventually established.
John H. Brinton in the
Personal memoirs of John H. Brinton, Civil War Surgeon

4. Image courtesy of the Library of Congres, Prints & Photographs
Ford’s Theater, c. 1870-1900

5. Image via the National Museum of Health & Medicine (Reeve032784)

6. Image via AP/National Museum of Health & Medicine, undated

7. Cranium extensively fractured by shell.
Confederate soldier; date of injury 12
July 1864.
Image and caption via the National Museum of Health & Medicine

8. It is, indeed, not such a collection as the timid would care to
visit at midnight, and alone. Fancy the pale moonlight lighting
up, with a bluish tinge, the blanched skeletons and grinning
skulls— the same moon that saw, in many a case, the death-
blow given, or the bullet pierce. The thought is not a
comforting one, and those fancies would not be calculated, at
such a time, to inspire courage. But in broad daylight … even
those of timid proclivities do not then hesitate to inspect
closely and with curiosity the objects which, twelve hours
later, when the building is dark and deserted, they would
scare care to approach.
-Louis Bagger in Appletons Journal, 1873.

9. Images courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine

10. Image and caption via the
National Museum of Health & Medicine
Pvt. Benjamin Franklin,
Lost all four limbs to frostbite.

11. Image via the National Museum of Health & Medicine
A strange return of my self-consciousness. I was re-
individualized… A strange wonder filled me, and, to
the amazement of everyone, I arose, and,
staggering a little, walked across the room on limbs
invisible to them or to me. It was no wonder I
staggered, for, as I briefly reflected, my legs had
been nine months in the strongest alcohol.
- S. Weir Mitchell
“The Case of George Dedlow,” 1866.

13. Image and caption via the National Museum of Health & Medicine
Newspaper woodcut of Civil war
general Daniel Sickles viewing his
amputated leg at the Army
Medical Museum.

14. Image via the National Museum of Health & Medicine
Private John Murphy
37th MA Volunteers

15. Demanded the return of a limb, an arm, I think. He was informed that the member
in question could not be given up. ‘But it is mine,’ said he, ‘part of myself,’ earnestly
enforcing his claim, and his demand to the lay mind seemed reasonable. Yet to
surrender a specimen was very much like yielding a principle. ‘Stop,’ said the quick-
witted young assistant curator to the claimant, ‘for how long have you enlisted?’
‘For three years or the war.’ ‘Then,’ replied the official, ‘the contract is not yet
terminated, come back at the end of the war or at the expiration of your three
years’ service and you can have your bone. In the meantime one detachment of
you is stationed in this Museum on government duty, the other wherever you may
be ordered. Such is the opinion of the Attorney General.’ The reply and its reason
seemed conclusive, and the bone remained in its place.
- John H. Brinton, Journal of the American Medical Association, 1896.

16. Image via the National Museum of Health & Medicine
Private John Murphy
37th MA Volunteers

17. General Daniel Sickles leg bones with similar
cannonball, removed after the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War.
Photograph by Norman Watkins.
Image and caption via the National Museum of Health & Medicine

18. Thank you
Ashley Bowen-Murphy
ashley_bowen@brown.edu
@BowenMurphy TwitterAuthor’s photograph

19. Selected Works Cited
• Ames, Mary Clemmer. Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capital, as a Woman Sees Them. Hartford, CT: A. D.
Worthington & Company, 1873.
• Bagger, Louis. “The Army Medical Museum in Washington.” Appletons’ Journal: A Magazine of General Literature 9, no. 206
(March 1, 1873): 294–97.
• Bourke, Joanna. “Silas Weir Mitchell’s The Case of George Dedlow.” The Lancet 373, no. 9672 (April 18, 2009): 1332–33.
• Brinton, John H. “Closing Exercises of the Session 1895-96, Army Medical School: Including an Address.” Journal of the American
Medical Association XXVI, no. 13 (March 28, 1896): 599–605. doi:10.1001/jama.1896.02430650001001.
• ---. Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, Civil War Surgeon. Shawnee Classics. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press,
1996.
• Chevlen, Eric. “MAJOR GENERAL SICKLES VISITS THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM, JULY 1904 (Poem).” National Review 56, no. 13
(July 12, 2004): 47–47.
• Clarke Jr., Tim. “Sickles’ Leg and the Army Medical Museum.” Military Medicine 179, no. 9 (September 2014): 1051–1051.
• Ellis, John F. Guide to Washington City and Vicinity: A Complete Hand-Book, Directing the Stranger How to Find Its Public Buildings,
Churches, Hotels, Places of Amusement, Horse Cars, Miscellaneous Societies, Newspapers, Cemeteries, Etc. ... Also, a Guide to the
Principal First-Class Stores in the Various Lines of Trade. John F. Ellis, 1868.
• Gest, William P. “In Re: Estate of Edward Burke,” November 12, 1892. Ser 4, Fol 4. College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
• Henry, Robert S., and Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. “The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: Its First Century 1862-1962.”
Washington, DC: Office of the Army Surgeon General, Department of the Army, 1964.
• Mitchell, J. Walter. “Looking Backward.” The Washington Herald. May 11, 1919.
• Mitchell, S. Weir. “The Case of George Dedlow.” The Atlantic Monthly 18, no. 105 (July 1866): 1–11.
• Perrottet, Tony. “The National Museum of Health and Medicine.” Smithsonian 42, no. 3 (June 2011): 59–59.
• Purtle, Helen R. “Lincoln Memorabilia in the Medical Museum of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.” Bulletin of the History
of Medicine 32, no. 1 (February 1958): 68–74.
• Rhode, Michael G. “The Rise and Fall of the Army Medical Museum and Library.” Washington History 18, no. 1/2 (January 1, 2006):
78–97. doi:10.2307/40073619.
• Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Stone, Paul. Legacy of Excellence: The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1862-2011. Fort Detrick, Md. : Fort Sam Houson, Texas :
Washington, D.C: Borden Institute ; US Army Medical Dept. Center and School ; For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S.G.P.O, 2011.
• Yarrow, H. C. List of Skeletons and Crania in the Section of Comparative Anatomy of the United States Army Medical Museum, for
Use during the International Exhibition of 1876 : In Connection with the Representation of the Medical Dept., U.S. Army. Army
Medical Museum, 1876.