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Last updated: July 8, 2024
Content warning: Contains discussion of human remains
We reject scientific racism that was used to justify slavery and the unethical inacquisition of the remains of enslaved people.
As we confront our institutional history tied to colonialist and racist narratives, we are continuously working to reconcile our past with restorative practices.
This page documents both the historical background of the Samuel G. Morton Cranial Collection as well as updates on the Museum’s work towards its repatriation and repair.
Samuel G. Morton contributed to racist thought. From the 1830s through the 1840s, this Philadelphia-based physician and anatomy lecturer collected human crania. With broadly white supremacist views, Morton’s research on the crania was cited by some as evidence that Europeans, especially those of German and English ancestry, were intellectually, morally, and physically superior to all other races.
After Morton’s death in 1851, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia purchased and expanded the collection. It was moved to the Penn Museum in 1966, accessioned in 1996, and is now housed in storage in the Museum’s Biological Anthropology Section. Some of the crania had previously been stored in custom-made glass fronted cabinets in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) Classroom 190 and were eventually moved to storage in the summer of 2020. The collection has been referenced for scientific insight surrounding traumatic injury as well as health and disease patterns in past human populations.
In January and February 2024, the Penn Museum and the University of Pennsylvania took a step toward repair for unethical possession of human remains in the Morton Collection, returning 19 Black Philadelphians in the Collection to the community by laying them to rest at Historic Eden Cemetery. A public Interfaith Commemoration Service in honor of these Philadelphians, at which Provost John Jackson and Museum Williams Director Chris Woods apologized for their unethical possession, was held at the Museum on February 3, 2024.
As this step demonstrates, we take seriously the wide ethical, cross-cultural, and legal expectations and considerations that should be acknowledged with regard to the care and stewardship of human remains.
A version of this was published as an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer on February 27, 2024.
In February 2024, the University of Pennsylvania Museum interred the crania of 19 Black Philadelphians at Eden Cemetery, a historic Black cemetery on the outskirts of Philadelphia. These individuals, who lived some 200 years ago, were among the most vulnerable and disenfranchised in society. At the time of their deaths, their crania were unethically collected by physician Samuel G. Morton (1799-1851) and his associates, who attempted to provide a scientific basis for racism by seeking evidence in the skulls that would demonstrate the superiority of Europeans. In this way, they became part of the infamous Morton Cranial Collection, the largest collection of human crania in its day, which included remains of individuals from around the world. The names of these Philadelphians are not known—Morton did not record them. His bookkeeping entries are primarily limited to age range, sex, occasionally circumstances of death, and, of course, race. Originally housed in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Morton Cranial Collection was relocated to the Penn Museum in 1966.
When I arrived at Penn in 2021, the Museum was embroiled in controversies involving its holding of human remains of African Americans. Driven initially by the larger reckoning around race that occurred in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, museums have faced growing scrutiny over the legacies of their colonial collecting practices, which included the acquisition of remains of enslaved and Indigenous people. It was in the course of confronting our museum’s past that we decided to address the future of the Morton Collection, beginning with the Black Philadelphians, some of whom were likely born enslaved, based on the demographic data of the time. I convened a committee of West Philadelphia community and religious leaders to advise us on a path forward. Because we lack knowledge of the names of the individuals in the collection, these citizens volunteered to serve as representatives in lieu of their lineal descendants.
Our community partners were insistent that these individuals did not belong in museum storerooms. After nearly 200 years in storage and of being subjected to exhibition and scientific study, they should finally be laid to rest without delay—they should wait no longer. Doing so, they urged, would prioritize their human dignity and restore the personhood that had been so violently stripped away from them. This would be a reckoning with our museum's colonial past and an act of reconciliation with our local community.
In collaboration with our community advisory committee, we put forth a plan to lay the Black Philadelphians to rest at Eden Cemetery and commemorate them with an interfaith ceremony—which took place on February 3, 2024. Importantly, our plan called for interment in an above-ground mausoleum, so that if, in the future, research might lead to an identification and a legitimate claim be made, the remains can be easily retrieved and entrusted to the descendants. Our process is by design fully reversible, should the facts or circumstances change.
From our perspective, the prompt interment of these individuals is an imperative of ethical stewardship. Critics of our approach have argued that the Black Philadelphians should remain in storerooms until such time as research leads to an identification and, in turn, a claim by a descendant or community. This criticism prioritizes the prospective search for lineal descendants over the immediate human dignity of the deceased, in the hopes that 19th-century archives would allow conclusive identification of individuals and descendants. There is, however, no guarantee that these hopes would ever be realized. Research carried out in local and city records over the last several years has, in fact, shed some new light on the circumstances of some of these individuals. But, to date, these efforts have not yielded a single new name that can be conclusively used for identification. Nor has this research resulted in a claim from a descendant or from a federally recognized tribe, as would be required by the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) for those individuals with possible Native American ancestry.
Museums and cultural institutions too often delay or avoid repatriations by claiming that more extensive research and conclusive evidence is warranted before any action can be taken to return human remains and other culturally sensitive objects to descendant communities. Indeed, the most recent NAGPRA regulations—the only legal framework available to guide repatriations of any kind—are aimed at undercutting such dilatory tactics. They require museums to determine cultural affiliation based on “the information available,” stressing that “cultural affiliation does not require exhaustive studies, additional research, or continuity through time.”
It's my sincere hope that continued research efforts will be successful in restoring the identity of at least some of the Black Philadelphians in the Morton Collection. But given the nature of the 19th-century records available, it is unlikely that most of these individuals will ever be identified with certainty. To wait without a foreseeable end for research that may never be conclusive would be tantamount to doing nothing at all, which, from an ethical perspective, is unacceptable for our museum.
In the best-case scenario, should an identification be made, further difficult questions will surely arise. To whom among descendants with potentially equal claims should the remains be given? And what neutral party will manage this process, which may involve complex legal entanglements and associated costs? Answering these questions will undoubtedly add years to the two centuries that these individuals have endured in museum collections. And even this best-case scenario presupposes that there are descendants willing to assume the obligations associated with claiming the remains of 19th-century ancestors.
It will be a happy day, indeed, if the foregoing obstacles are surmounted and we can return at least some of these Philadelphians to their descendants. For now, while the research continues, let them rest in peace and with dignity at Eden Cemetery, rather than in the storerooms of the Penn Museum.
In 1970, we became the first museum to take formal steps towards guaranteeing the ethical acquisition of materials and deterring looting and illicit antiquities trading. This statement of ethics was called the Pennsylvania Declaration and was presented at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In 1990, we hired a full-time Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Coordinator and formed a NAGPRA Committee to begin working with Native American and Native Hawaiian communities on the respectful return of human remains of their peoples. Since then, the Penn Museum has mailed over 3,000 letters to federally recognized tribes informing them of our holdings and extending invitations to consult with us about our holdings. As of 2020, 49 formal repatriation claims seeking the return of collections have been received and 29 repatriations have been completed resulting in the transfer of 266 sets of human remains, 750 funerary objects, 14 unassociated funerary objects, 23 objects of cultural patrimony, 24 sacred objects and 2 objects claimed as both cultural patrimony and sacred.
In August 2020, the Morton Committee was formed to discuss a NAGPRA-informed infrastructure and process that would inform the repatriation or burial of the enslaved and Black individuals in the Collection. In the Museum’s long history of working with heritage community stakeholders and in full compliance of the law, the committee will be evaluating each case individually in an ethical and respectful manner.
In August 2020, the U.S. Department of State entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the Penn Cultural Heritage Center (PennCHC) to protect and preserve international cultural property at risk from political instability, armed conflict, or natural or other disasters. PennCHC draws upon the expertise of the curators and researchers of the Penn Museum to develop long-term programs for the preservation and promotion of community-based cultural heritage. This includes studying the threats to cultural heritage from the looting and plundering of archaeological and historical sites, the illicit antiquities trade, and commercial development.
The Morton Collection consists of over 1,300 crania, which were collected by Samuel Morton and others during the mid-19th century. After Morton’s death in 1851, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia purchased and expanded the collection. It was moved to the Penn Museum in 1966.
The crania come from all parts of the world and range in date from ancient Egyptian times to the 19th century. As such, the Morton Collection needs to be treated as multiple smaller groupings, rather than as a single unit.
The exact number of crania in the collection is difficult to determine due to inconsistencies and renumbering in the Morton and Meig's catalogues. The figures provided in these pages are based on the best current assessments around constantly evolving research into the Collection.
19th-century archival records from the Morton collection identified at least 13 individuals as Black Philadelphians. Laying their cranial remains to rest is an initial step that reflects our ongoing work towards repair.
As further research yields new information about individuals in the collection, we remain committed to taking appropriate steps towards repatriation or burial.
Samuel George Morton (1799–1851) was a Philadelphia-based physician and anatomy lecturer. He worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences, where he conducted research into paleontology and on a large collection of human skulls, which later came to be known as the Morton Cranial Collection. However, leading scholars such as Charles Darwin regarded Morton as a second-rate scholar, who poorly documented information presented in his publications, made arbitrary assumptions, and came to false conclusions.
The Collection is housed in storage in the Museum’s Biological Anthropology Section. Some of the crania had previously been stored in custom-made glass-fronted cabinets in CAAM Classroom 190. This was originally intended to be a dedicated Biological Anthropology classroom; however, with CAAM’s growth, 190 has become a multi-use classroom, and the Museum determined that having these skulls on view was not appropriate.
From 2004 to 2011, the Museum was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to CT scan the Morton Collection. As of March 2020, more than 17,500 CT scans have been distributed to scholars around the world; often, researchers use both the actual crania with the CT scans in their research. Researchers have included colleagues from Penn Medicine, Penn Dental, and Penn Law; topics have included worldwide variation in the functional morphology (shape) of the cranium, patterns of growth and development of the cranium and dentition, the analysis of traumatic injury, shape changes in dentition and palate, health and disease patterns of peoples in past human populations, and more.
The Collection prompts important discussions of race and science for audiences from students to the general public; it played a primary role in the Penn Museum’s 2016 Public Classroom public series on Science and Race: History, Use, and Abuse.
For general questions, including more information about repatriation and the Museum’s policy on human remains, please contact director@pennmuseum.org.
For more information specific to the Morton Cranial Collection, please contact biologicalanthropologysection@pennmuseum.org.
For press-related inquiries, please contact pr@pennmuseum.org.