Frances Glessner Lee wasborn in 1878 , the heiress to the International Harvester fortune . Although she was born in Chicago and grew up in the architecturally renownedGlessner House , she lived much of her later life story in Littleton , New Hampshire .
Young Frances was school at home with her brother , but despite sustain an interest in law of nature and medicine , she was mostly teach the domesticated arts . Shewasn’t permittedto attend to college when her brother continued on to Harvard , and instead , as was distinctive for a young woman of exclusive right at that time , she was officially presented to society at age 19 . Just three calendar month afterwards , she was hook up with off to attorney Blewett Lee , adistant relativeof Robert E. Lee .
Her marital life seems to have been unextraordinary . She make three children with her hubby , and seems to have essentially lived the aliveness expected of her . It was n’t until she was in-between - senior — her children grown and her married man having disunite her — that she gained the freedom to pursue her real passion : forensic science . She had first become interested in the subject field through conversation with her brother ’s Harvard classmateGeorge Burgess Magrath , who eventually became a Harvard pathology prof and a medical examiner . She get word , through him , of the challenges faced by criminal investigator , of how the police and coroners were relatively untrained in death investigation and the conservation of evidence , leaving manymurderers to go free .
In the 1930s , she also begin spend her leisure time metre doing what would at first appear to be a very feminine and good spare-time activity for a woman of her eld and social standing — constructing dioramas of dollhouse miniatures . They were whimsical , tiny scenes , with people and furniture , in right dollhouse scale .
A close aspect , though , reveal that her small way picture actual criminal offense setting , complete with idle body , murder weapons , ancestry spattering , and every element of the aftermath of a killing . She studied the case files of real New England offence for her construction , and included all the clues necessary to solve each crime in her dreadful doll houses . Some of the dolls , for example , were design to show effects of rigor mortis and lividity , from which meter of destruction can be estimated . In one face , a tiny bullet is lodged in a rafter , for only the most eagle - eyed investigator to find .
She hollo her dioramas the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death . She put so much intricate work , expense , and care into each one that she was only able-bodied to construct a few per year . Once , when she need cloth for a pair of miniature gasp on a number , she bear an old suit around , even though it was out of fashion , so she could see the cloth was worn in to the proper , realistic point . She even handwriting - knitted the sock for the figures , using knitting needle the size of pin .
As writer Laura J. Miller said of the bailiwick of the Nutshell Studies in a 2005Harvard Magazinearticle,“Many display a tawdry , middle - social class décor , or show the marginal spaces society ’s disenfranchised might inhabit — seedy rooms , boarding house — far from the surround of her own childhood . She disclosed the dark side of domesticity and its potentially deleterious effects : Many victims were woman ‘ led astray ’ from the cocoon - similar security of the habitation — by hands , misfortune , or their own ungoverned desire . ”
It ’s recite that most of the victims in her dollhouses of death are women , and that they are show up in their homes , with kitchens and babies , in the realms of domesticity that she herself may have chafed against .
In the 1930s , once she come into her substantive International Harvester inheritance after her parents and her chum had passed away , she used some of her vast circumstances to dower the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard . The aim of the section was to help Massachusetts police apply aesculapian probe to solve unexplained Death , and to further the consumption of skilled medical investigator rather of “ laymen medical examiner . ” Glessner Lee also instituted aweeklong seminaron forensic scientific discipline in partnership with Harvard University in 1945 , which isstill held every year . The Harvard Associates in Police Science training program also still employ the Nutshell Studies to provide instruction to cops , private research worker , medical quizzer , and other professionals study forensic investigation .
Her cause to ensure quality education for death- and crime - fit investigators encouraged a move away from untrained medical examiner in many states in favor of extremely train medical examiners . In recognition of her achievement , in 1943 , she was namedState Police Captain of New Hampshire — the only woman in the land with the laurels at the time .
Today there are 19 surviving Nutshell Studies,18 of whichare kept in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore , Maryland , where they are still used to instruct . While not technically assailable to the public , individual showings can sometimes be set up .
Glessner Lee used the perquisite afford to her , in combination with the domestic activity and craft have a bun in the oven of a bon ton matron , to top the grammatical gender norms of her epoch and post . She is sometimes referred to as the " Mother of Forensic Science . "
HerNew York Timesobituaryfrom January 28 , 1962 was headlined “ Rich Widow Who Became Criminologist . ” In it , she was quoted as say : “ fortunately , I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth . It gives me the time and money to come after my hobbyhorse of scientific offence detection . ”
All image courtesy Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner except where noted .
