Report on-line conference 12 – 13 May 2025.
Founded in the mid 19th century, Umlauff supplied both natural history and ethnographic museums with zoological and ethnographic objects from all over the world for almost 100 years.
Courtesy Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin
Umlauff’s market position and availability of material was enhanced by family ties to the Hanseatic family business of Carl Hagenbeck, founder of the Hamburg Zoological Gardens, among others.
The aim of the workshop was to discuss the significance of the Umlauff family’s natural history trade for the development of natural history collections, especially in German museums.
To this end were discussed:
- What were the trading networks of the Umlauff natural history firm and its worldwide trading partners?
- Which institutions benefited from Umlauff’s trading activities on a national and international level?
- Which procurement channels and appropriation practices of the various objects can be traced, especially with a focus on collections from colonial contexts?
These questions were intended to outline an interdisciplinary field of research that sheds light on the intertwining of economic, political, and scientific interests in a central phase of natural history museums.
