Portraits of Wounded Bodies: Photographs of Civil War Soldiers from Harewood Hospital, Washington, D.C., 1863-1866
January 16th-April 1st, 2013
Tours open to all on Wed. Jan. 23rd, 4 p.m., and Friday Jan. 25th at noon!
One hundred and fifty years ago, the Civil War raged throughout the United States, creating thousands of casualties. On view now, the Medical Historical Library explores Civil War medicine through the haunting photographs of wounded soldiers. Curated by Heidi Knoblauch, a doctoral student in Yale’s Section of the History of Medicine, and Melissa Grafe, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, selections from a set of 93 photographic portraits from Harewood Hospital, Washington D.C. are on display in the Rotunda of the Medical Library. These images, some quite graphic, depict soldiers recovering from a variety of wounds, including gunshot wounds. The soldiers’ case histories and stories, analyzed by Heidi Knoblauch, are part of a larger examination of medical photography and Civil War memory as America commemorates the 150th anniversary of the war. In the foyer of Sterling Hall, the exhibit expands to include a larger discussion of Civil War medicine and surgery, including hospitals and nurses, using images and materials from the Medical Historical Library. An online version of the Harewood Hospital photographs is available in the Digital Library of the Medical Historical Library.
This exhibit is on display at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, 333 Cedar Street. For more information, contact Melissa Grafe, Ph.D, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, at melissa.grafe@yale.edu.
