Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum—the most crowd-facing part of S. 22nd Street’s College of Physicians of Philadelphia— has forever been a quiet place. Sure, the Mütter is famous for its decadent Halloween-time costume party and a Spring soiree, Marie Curie’s Radiant Ball, in dedication to the first female Nobel Prize winner.
Beyond lively parties, however, how loud would you expect the renowned home of anatomical and pathological specimens from the long deceased to be?
The Mütter Museum recently made news when Larry Kaiser, CEO of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, eliminated the position of the first Executive Director of the Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library. That was the job held, controversially, by Kate Quinn, a woman who famously questioned the ethics of displaying human remains in its collection and squashed a majority of the Mütter’s public events.
As of April 8, Quinn is no longer a part of the Mütter.
At the risk of sounding mercenary, it is the remains of those who died — the heart of a living donor collected throughout the cholera outbreak of 1849 and 19th century tattooed skin swatches to name a few — that make the Mütter a haven for curious tourists from around the world. Parties such as its Halloween bash and Radiant Ball, along with renting out the Mütter’s opulent event spaces, also keeps the museum’s heart pumping. So, with Quinn’s departure and the return of its Radiant Ball this April 25, the Mütter is again, alive, even if its beloved displays aren’t.
Kaiser, a Fellow of the College since 1993, has been on its board in the finance department, and became Mütter’s CEO in January 2025. Before Quinn’s hire, Kaiser reminds Metro that the College began in 1787 as a Fellowship organization and remains so today.
“As such, we were started to disseminate knowledge, what knowledge existed in 1787,” he says. “The College is an educational institution… we’re particularly interested in educating young people in STEM fields…. The Mütter Museum is but one component of the college, yet people think of us because of the museum and its national and international presence.”
Meaningful engagement is a large element of what the Mütter and the College of Physicians is all about. But when Quinn became its director – a position that didn’t exist before her hire – she instructed staff to remove all online exhibits and YouTube videos so that that the museum could conduct ethical review of its collection at a time when museums nationwide dealt with the ethics of displaying human remains without permission from the deceased or their families.
“It was fairly precipitous that those videos were taken down without warning. People liked those videos,” says Kaiser. “There was controversy. And that resulted in the formation of the Protect the Mütter group, with over 30,000 names on the petition.”
The philosophical divide over the Mütter’s future under Quinn also centered on the types of events and exhibitions the museum would host—favoring her emphasis on wellness, rather than the Mütter’s traditional focus on death.
“My philosophy differed (from Quinn). People come to the museum for many reasons, and it is not up to me to judge those reasons,” Kaiser said. “Museums are for education, as well as for entertaining.”
“I think you can do both, educate and entertain… I think repatriating the remains of indigent people and Pacific Islanders (two issues brought up by Quinn) is important. We also have to reckon with the fact that material collected 200 years ago under circumstances that were deemed appropriate at the time aren’t appropriate today,” Kaiser continued. “Our job, as we display remains, now, is to put them into the context of some of the ethical dilemmas involved – and to allow people to think about those dilemmas. That’s the education component.”
As for one of the Mütter’s most entertaining components – the always outrageous Marie Curie’s Radiant Ball – Kaiser is looking forward to its return.
“The Ball is familiar to those from the events that we had around the time of Halloween, all of which were popular,” says Kaiser, adding that the Mütter is building plans for exhibitions and events leading up to Philadelphia’s Sesquicentennial and World Cup celebration in 2026.
“What I am most interested in is getting people to come to the college and to the museum,” says Kaiser. “Anytime we can attract people here is a benefit. And we already have over 350 people signed up for the Radiant Ball. It will be very entertaining.”
