Northeast News
July 22, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The Kansas City Museum is adding over 15,000 new objects to its already vast collection.

According to a press release, the Kansas City Museum, 3218 Gladstone Blvd., has acquired two historical collections: nearly 15,000 medical objects donated by Prime Healthcare (formerly St. Joseph Medical Center) and more than 300 objects donated by the Historic Garment District Museum.

Since 1971, St. Joseph Medical Center in south Kansas City has maintained a small medical museum by one of its doctors, Dr. Donald Piper, who enlisted everyone at the hospital to contribute materials. Over the years, the collection has grown to include such items as medical instruments and equipment, textiles/clothing, archival records of Kansas City area doctors and hospitals, and a large photograph collection. The earliest collection piece dates to about 1800. The collection represents all local Kansas City area hospitals and doctors.

In addition to the medical collection, the Kansas City Museum has also acquired more than 300 Kansas City-made garments and accessories from the Historic Garment District Museum of Kansas City, located in the heart of the old Garment District in DST’s Poindexter building, at 801 Broadway Blvd. The museum was founded and opened in 2002 by Ann Brownfield and Harvey Fried. Many of the buildings nearby date back to the 1870s and are on the National Register of Historic Places. After World War I and through the 1940s, the area employed more than 4,000 people and boasted that one out of every seven women in the United States purchased a Kansas City-made garment. Manufacturing of garments was the second largest employer of any industry in Kansas City, Mo.

For more information about the Kansas City Museum, visit www.kansascitymuseum.org. Check out next week’s edition of the Northeast News for more information about these acquisitions.