US pays tribute to ‘mother of forensic science’
Washington, (MILLAT ONLINE):A homicide detective trains on the job for years, but one woman’s pioneering miniature crime-scene replicas are still used more than half a century after her death to teach police investigators from across the United States.
Starting in the 1940s, Frances Glessner Lee, known as the “mother of forensic science,” subverted traditionally feminine crafts to make breakthroughs in a male-dominated field of criminal investigation that was then still in its infancy.
Her dollhouse-sized, three-dimensional creations, inspired by true crime scenes, formed the subject of an exhibition that closed Sunday at the Renwick Gallery across from the White House in Washington, the first time all 19 studies still known to exist have been shown to the public.
All but one, known as the “lost nutshell” and on loan from the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, were loaned from the Harvard Medical School via the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME).
The Glessner family donated a tree farm to the New Hampshire society in 1978.
Charming at first glance, the handmade dioramas are also undeniably macabre, featuring the bodies of people who met a variety of grisly fates.
They are meticulously detailed, featuring piles of newspapers or letters in Lilliputian print, an ashtray overflowing with hand-rolled tiny tobacco cigarettes whose ends Lee would burn for added realism, finely knit socks or working window and door locks.
Overturned chairs, blood-spattered sheets or a cake still sitting on an open oven rack next to a dead housewife hint of unspeakable violence frozen in time.
Lee, who died in 1962 and who was in her 60s when she began crafting her dioramas, deliberately chose to feature victims who would otherwise often be overlooked, such as women and the poor, in an effort to help trainees recognize and overcome biases.