Frances Glessner Lee’s “Attic” is among the crime
scene dioramas used to train forensic scientists.SCIENCE sciencemag.org 7 FEBRUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6478 633PHOTO: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
F
rances Glessner Lee is best known
for crafting a curious set of macabre
dollhouses, each portraying a minia-
ture diorama of a real crime scene in
accurate and gory detail.
These unusual teaching
aids—referred to as “the Nut-
shell Studies of Unexplained
Death”—are still in use in police
departments and forensic train-
ing programs. Nevertheless,
as Bruce Goldfarb reveals in
18 Tiny Deaths, Glessner Lee’s
contribution to the development
of forensic medicine and crime
scene investigation was consid-
erably wider in scope than her
dollhouses of death. Goldfarb’s unprec-
edented access to her family’s papers has
enabled him not only to paint a full picture
of Glessner Lee’s life and background but
also to uncover less well-known aspects
of her impact on the development of foren-
sic science.ByAlison Adam Glessner Lee was born into a very wealthy
Chicago family in 1878. She was educated at
home and—like many women at the time—
never attended college. Although she was
aware of her educational deficiencies, she
had an acute intellect and an unusual eye for
detail. She also happened to be as
capable with arts and crafts as she
was with science and medicine.
The nutshell studies Glessner
Lee created were tiny models of
real crime scenes rendered with
all the details needed to infer what
had occurred. They were inspired
by the dollhouses she made as a
child. She designed all the models
herself and enlisted the help of a
skilled carpenter to bring them to
life. Despite facing a shortage of
materials—early models were produced dur-
ing World War II—Glessner Lee made sure
that every detail was accounted for. The first
model, for example, which depicted a death
by hanging in a New England barn, included
such details as a 1-inch-tall hornet’s nest
clinging to the eaves and a horseshoe hang-
ing with the open side down (the unlucky
way, of course) over the barn door.
But Glessner Lee’s impact on the field
would go beyond the nutshell studies. She
vigorously championed the cause of “legal”or, as it is now known, forensic medicine,
compelled by the belief that the coroner
system in use in the United States was
prone to corruption and lacked appropri-
ate input from those qualified in forensic
medicine. She also used her fortune to en-
dow a medicolegal library at Harvard and
helped to found the university’s Depart-
ment of Legal Medicine, the first of its kind
in the United States.
One of the goals of the Department of
Legal Medicine was to act as a resource for
criminal investigations throughout Massa-
chusetts and to ultimately become a national
resource for forensic medicine. To this end,
Glessner Lee established and ran a series of
police homicide seminars, not only arrang-
ing speakers but also paying their travel ex-
penses and overseeing arrangements for the
classroom and seminar banquets.
The seminars were an unqualified suc-
cess. Indeed, their fame was such that Erle
Stanley Gardner, the prolific author of the
Perry Mason detective novels, wrangled a
place in one. The experience prompted him
to convert to the cause of legal medicine.
While the university was eager to accept
Glessner Lee’s money, it was sometimes
reluctant to accept her advice, and the
two parties frequently clashed. The lavish
dinners she hosted after her seminars, for
example, were criticized by some in the
medical school. She argued that such events
were essential for networking purposes, but
the university made it clear that it would
have preferred to have spent the money on
other priorities.
Glessner Lee eventually grew frustrated
with what she saw as “a long, discouraging
struggle against petty jealousies, crass stu-
pidities, and an obstinate unwillingness to
learn that has required all the enthusiasm,
patience, courage and tact that I could mus-
ter.” Having initially venerated Harvard, she
was ultimately disappointed with its “old fo-
geyish” approach and lack of gratitude. Yet,
realizing that the work would not continue
unless it was well funded, she left a substan-
tial amount of money to the Department of
Legal Medicine in her will, and the homi-
cide seminars continued after her death in
1962 until 1967. (They were moved to Balti-
more in 1968 and continue to be held at the
State of Maryland Forensic Medical Center
to this day.)
Although her career was bedeviled by
setbacks, as Goldfarb ably demonstrates,
Frances Glessner Lee made a real and
lasting contribution to forensic science
and medicine. j
10.1126/science.aba1118The reviewer is at the Cultural, Communication, and
Computing Research Institute, Sheffield Hallam University,
Sheffield S1 2NU, UK, and is the author of A History of
Forensic Science: British Beginnings in the Twentieth Century
(Routledge, 2016). Email: [email protected]A wealthy patron’s vision and macabre
models helped forge the field of forensic medicine
Death dollhouses
and the birth of forensics
FORENSIC SCIENCEBOOKS et al.
18 Tiny Deaths
Bruce Goldfarb
Sourcebooks, 2020.
368 pp.Published by AAAS