In 2010, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz was awarded the 2010-2011 ArtsEdge Writer-in-Residency at the University of Pennsylvania. Aptowicz plans to use the ArtsEdge residency to work on a non-fiction book about the life and times of Thomas Dent Mütter, founder of the Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum.

An outspoken and eccentric young surgeon who worked in pre-Civil War America, Mütter revolutionized the art of surgery and helped to change people’s perceptions – both in his field and with the general public – on numerous controversial topics of his time, including the treatment of the severely deformed, who were often ostracized as “monsters” by their communities. His substantial collection of unusual medical specimens became the basis of his namesake museum, which is still used by medical students today as well as having become a popular cult destination for Philadelphia tourists.

In addition to the University of Pennsylvania appointment, the Mütter Museum has also granted Aptowicz full access to their museum, library and archives for the duration of the residency so that she may conduct her research for the book. The Mütter Museum’s Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine has additionally awarded Aptowicz with a Wood Institute Travel Grant to help further fund and support her work on this project.

Previously, Aptowicz penned the non-fiction screenplay about Thomas Dent Mütter. Mütter (the screenplay) would go on to win the 2003 “Set In Philadelphia” Screenwriting Award at the Philadelphia Film Festival and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship at the 2004 Hampton International Film Festival. To view the film short based on Cristin’s Mütter script, please click here