Osborne Overton Heard (1890-1983)

Osborne O. Heard was a noted Carnegie embryological model maker for the Department of Embryology at The Carnegie Institute of Washington (CIW), Baltimore, Maryland. Heard was born in Frederick, Maryland, on 21 November 1890. His father died while Heard and his three brothers were quite young. Heard attended night school at the Maryland Institute of Art and Design where he studied sculpting and patternmaking. While working as a patternmaker for the Detrick and Harvey Machine Company, Heard made models of tools using a variety of materials such as wood, plastic, and plaster of Paris. These models were then handed over to a mold maker to form a casting. Heard's work came to the attention of Franklin Paine Mall, the first director of the CIW's Embryology Department. Mall persuaded Heard to leave the machine company and to continue his craft at the Carnegie Institute. Hired in 1913, Heard remained an employee of the department for forty-two years, making hundreds of wax and plaster embryo models and contributing to several improvements in reconstruction technology.