Body-related Practices

The Schwarzkopf Collection

For more than four decades the Hans Schwarzkopf company has assembled a fascinating collection on the history of beauty care and personal grooming. It is dedicated especially to hair care and hair styles and was entrusted to the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum on permanent loan in 1995.

This collection of more than 2,000 objects includes ancient razors and hairpins, bath and hair-styling accessories, wash bowls and pitchers, make-up tables, powder boxes, flea traps, wig stands, equipment for straightening hair and setting permanents, and many other items. They document the daily beauty care, health care, and grooming of various cultural eras ranging from the ancient world to medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, neoclassical, and modern times. An extensive collection of graphics depicting various occupations (e.g., those of the barber-surgeons, wig-makers, and perfume-makers), hairdressing scenes of the 18th century, and other motifs are an outstanding complement to the collection.

Selected parts of the Schwarzkopf Collection are on permanent display. All but a few of its objects are retrievable from the data bank. Enter the inventory code 'SK' for an overview. 

Permanent exhibtion, Section "Beauty, Skin and Hair"
MORE

Publications

"Sehnsucht nach Vollkommenheit", Ausstellungskatalog, hrsg. von der Hans Schwarzkopf GmbH, Hamburg 1995

"Die Frisur", Eine Kulturgeschichte der Haarmode von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, hrsg. von Maria Jedding-Gesterling, Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1988

Edmund Launert, "Parfüm und Flakons", Georg D. W: Callwey GmbH & Co., 1985

"Das Herrenhaus Steinhorst und die Sammlung Schwarzkopf", Schriftenreihe der Stiftung Herzogtum Lauenburg Band 2, Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1979

Online research (in German only)
COLLECTION ONLINE

Suche >> Konvolut >> Sammlung Schwarzkopf

The Münchow Collection

Dr. Wolfgang Münchow (1923-1986), an ophthalmologist from Zwickau, placed his research collection on the history of ophthalmology in the custody of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in 1984.

The collection encompasses more than 1,000 objects from the 17th through the 20th centuries, including historical spectacles, diagnostic and examination equipment, surgical instruments, graphics, briefs, paintings, and an extensive library on medical history. The special merit of this collection lies in its complexity, for it traces not only the most important developments in the field of ophthalmology but also the journalistic and cultural dimensions of this history.

Part of the Münchow collection are on permanent display, and of its objects can be explored through the data bank. Enter the inventory code 'M' for an overview.

 

Publication

"Augenheilkunde. Die Sammlung Münchow", Begleitband zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung des Deutschen Hygiene-Museums in Zusammenarbeit mit der Medizinischen Akademie "Carl Gustav Carus" Dresden, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum 1991

Online research (in German only)
COLLECTION ONLINE

Suche >> Konvolut >> Sammlung Münchow

 

MEDIZIN-HISTORISCHE SAMMLUNG DER TECHNISCHEN ORTHOPÄDIE DITTMER

Berlin orthopaedic technician Klaus Dittmer spent many years acquiring his collection before donating it to the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in 2007. Several hundred objects attest to the history and development of orthopaedic technology, particular during the second half of the 19th century. Klaus Dittmer always saw his objects also as testimonies to the individual fates of those who used them, which is why he recorded many of their biographical details. These prostheses and orthoses, walking, standing and seating aids, etc., tell the story of lives lived with the aid of artificial limbs, of new-found mobility, of compensation and balance, but also of self-assured appropriation and deliberate use, of social obstacles and individual suffering.

Research project
This collection was the starting point for the three-year research project entitled Anthropofakte. Schnittstelle Mensch (August 2013 to July 2016).

Publications
Körpergeschichten. Eine Sammlung zur Prothetik
Parahuman. Neue Perspektiven auf das Leben mit Technik

Online research (in German only)
COLLECTION ONLINE

Suche >> Konvolut >> Medizin-historische Sammlung der Technischen Orthopädie Dittmer

 

 

The collection on the history of East German day nurseries

This collection comprises about 500 objects and documents from Dresden day nurseries in the years from 1950 through 1990. They include furniture; toys; clothing; drinking and eating utensils; objects and records on medical care, health education, and personal hygiene in the day nurseries; information boards; wall newspapers; chronicles of the nurseries; methodological materials of the day-nursery personnel; and contemporary technical literature.

Much of the collection can be explored through the COLLECTION ONLINE. Enter the keyword "Kinderkrippe" for an overview.

Publications

"Wenn Mutti früh zu Arbeit geht...", Ausstellungspublikation des Deutschen Hygiene-Museums, hrsg. von Monika Müller-Rieger, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum und Argon Verlag 1997

"Kinder brauchen Kinder - neue Wege in der Kinderbetreuung", Publikationsreihe Wissenschaft im Deutschen Hygiene-Museum, Bd. 7, hrsg. von Kisten Simon und Dorothea van Loyen, Dresden 1998

Online research (in German only)
COLLECTION ONLINE

Suche >> Konvolut >> Sammlung zur Kinderkrippe in der DDR

Odol Archive at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum

In 2004 GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare GmbH & Co. KG donated the Odol Archive to the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum. It contains several thousand objects documenting the product history and advertising history of the ODOL mouthwash and other eponymous products from 1893 right through to the 1960s. The bulk of this bundle consists of a collection of newspaper cuttings with advertisements for ODOL. Added to that are vintage Odol bottles, mouthwash glasses, toothpaste packaging, advertising displays and enamel signs, photographs, postcards and filmed commercials. While the archive first and foremost reflects the marketing history of a famous product, it also provides important evidence of the cultural history of personal hygiene in the 20th century.

Publication
In aller Munde. 100 Jahre Odol

Online research (in German only)
COLLECTION ONLINE

Suche >> Konvolut >> Odol-Archiv im Deutschen Hygiene-Museum