Image: Julianna Whalen, Penn Museum
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has announced its action plan regarding the repatriation or reburial of ancestors, including the remains of Black Philadelphians within the Samuel G. Morton Cranial collection. This plan is based on an April 8, 2021 report outlining recommendations from the Morton Collection Committee, which was formed in August 2020; the Committee’s report is being publicly released on April 12, 2021.
Collected in the first half of the 19th century by Samuel G. Morton whose research was used to justify white supremacist views, the collection was moved from the Drexel Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia to the Penn Museum in 1966. It is currently housed in storage in the Museum’s Physical Anthropology Section.