WEBVTT - Frances Glessner Lee and Tiny Forensics 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:04.000 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:13.520 stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:17.200 I'm Colley Fry and I'm Tracy P. Wilson. Today's topic 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.440 is one that has been on my list for a 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.000 very long time, almost from the time, Uh, Tracy and 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.880 I came on to Documents in History Class, and many 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.400 listeners have also requested it. It is uh sort of 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:34.240 equal parts quaint and horrifying, which is probably why people 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.559 really love it so much and respond to this. Uh. 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:40.400 And it also features a woman who was, uh, you know, 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.360 a debutante heiress, but sort of anything but the standard 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:46.920 debutante eress you may conjure in your mind when you 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.040 hear those words. And even though she was sort of 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.519 forced into that role and she had some you know, 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:59.600 society bucking instincts about where a woman should be in uh, 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.000 in her place and how that was going to work, 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.960 you know, she was still nonetheless an heiress and part 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.920 of that structure that had made her, that had given 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:12.440 her that position. And her name was Francis Glessner Lee, 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.959 and she was a very meticulous woman. Uh. There are 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.399 stories that you'll hear that she was so exacting that 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.400 she actually would number the bottoms of vases and knickknacks 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.679 uh and similarly label the shelves that they were supposed 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:27.240 to go on with corresponding numbers, so everything would always 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.040 be in its exact space. That's just like a quick 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.000 character insight for you, because it would maybe be no 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.160 surprise then that this woman who was surprising in many ways, 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.640 was a major contributor to the world of forensic science 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.200 and criminology, and we actually have a lot to thank 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.520 her for. So Francis Glessner Lee came from a very 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.080 wealthy family. Her father was John Jacob Glessner, and he 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:54.880 made a sportune in the farm implement industry. Her mother, 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.840 Sarah Francis Macbeth Glessner, had met John Jacob when her 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.320 family had taken him and as a border and the 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.560 Glasseners were very active in civic affairs. Both of Francis's 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.480 parents wrote a great deal. John served on the boards 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.680 of many civic organizations, including the Citizens Association of Chicago 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.360 and the Chicago Orphan Asylum, and he was also a 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.680 trustee of the Chicago Orchestra Association. Sarah was something of 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.079 a renaissance woman. Not only was she skilled as a seamstress, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:29.200 but she also studied piano, silversmithing, and beekeeping. She organized 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.160 gatherings for women where they could hear lectures and readings 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.000 about contemporary writing, and she was one of the founders 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.440 of the Chicago Chamber Music Society and was a passionate 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.320 advocate for the arts. Sarah and John's first child was 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.720 George Macbeth Glessner, and he was born in eighteen seventy one, 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.840 and because George had chronic and serious hay fever, the 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.359 family ended up building a second summer house in New 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.320 Hampshire so he could get away from the the issues 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:58.680 in Chicago in spring and summer that would cause this 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.480 hay fever to sort of be a problem for him. 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.200 The couple had a second son in eighteen seventy four, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.440 although the baby, John Francis, sadly died when he was 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.040 eight months old, and then their daughter, Francis Glessner, was 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.400 born on March twenty five, eighteen seventy eight. Because of 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:19.800 George's ongoing health issues, the children were home schooled instead 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.040 of sent to school by a series of tutors, and 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.080 that was also actually pretty common for well to do 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.720 families at the time to school their children at home. Yeah, 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:29.720 we've had a lot of podcast subjects who all learned 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.960 at home. Francis grew up in Glessner House, which was 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.400 designed by architect Henry Hobson Richardson and was built in 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.040 eighteen eighty seven. This house, which is on Chicago's Prairie 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:42.760 Avenue in the South Loop, is now a National Historic 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.760 Landmark and museum. Once the Glessners moved into Glessner House, 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.560 they spent winters there in summers in their New Hampshire 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.400 cabin which was called the Rocks, And during one of 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:54.960 those summers while they were in New Hampshire, the family 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.800 was joined by George's friend, another George named George Burgess McGrath. 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:02.400 And this name you want to just keep in the 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:04.800 back of your head because he would become a pretty 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.960 significant influence on Francis later in her life. As Francis, 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.760 who went by Fanny among her family members, started to 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.680 approach adulthood, she became interested in pursuing a career in 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.920 law or medicine, but her parents were really against this idea. 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.440 There are some unsubstantiated reports that their father, John actually 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.520 believed that ladies should know nothing of the human body, 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.279 which sort of makes me giggle a little bit. But 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:30.960 you know, you have one, You're going to fundamentally know 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.800 a few things. But it's an interesting mindset and not 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:38.120 all of that unusual for the early nineteen hundreds, I imagine. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.719 So instead of going to university, which she had wanted 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.680 to do, in which her brother George was doing, Francis 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.240 spent a little more than a year traveling through Europe 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.800 with her aunt Helen macbeth from eighteen nine to eighteen 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:55.080 ninety seven, and after they returned to Chicago, Francis made 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:59.240 her formal Society debut in November of eighteen. Just a 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:03.000 few months there being presented into society, Francis married lawyer 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.360 blew It Lee, who was distantly related to Robert E. Lee, 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.000 and the new couple moved into a townhouse the Glesseners 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.040 had built for Fanny on Prairie Avenue near the Glessner house. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.120 Her brother George also had a town house built by 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.680 their parents, and Francis was nineteen when she married. This 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:23.359 marriage was not an especially happy one. Eventually it became 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.720 clear that Francis and blew It really did not have 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.120 all that much in common and they didn't share that 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:32.080 many interests. Um. One story that her son eventually tells 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.119 is that, um, you know, she wanted to make things 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.400 and do things all the time, and blew it was 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.520 just not into that. So it really they just had 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:43.320 a separation of mind. Uh. The Perry eventually divorced in 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.640 nineteen fourteen, but not before they had already had three 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.480 children together. So their children were John Glessner Lee, who 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.400 was born in eight Frances Lee born in nineteen o three, 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.839 and Martha Lee, who was born in nineteen o six. 0:05:57.160 --> 0:05:59.200 And before we go on and talk about sort of 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.360 what her life becomes after divorce, so let's take a 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.760 quick word from our sponsor. So now back to Francis 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:10.159 Glessner Lee after her divorce. So, once her marriage was 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.839 over and she suddenly had a new life to begin, 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:15.920 Fences returned to a hobby that she had actually learned 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.800 as a child, which was making miniatures, and inteen, while 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.880 she was separated but not yet divorced from her husband, 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.080 she completed her first solo miniature diorama, and this was 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.200 a detailed recreation of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which was 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.560 one of the many art organizations her mother was very 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.960 passionate about. And this was complete with tiny pieces of 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.760 sheet music and tiny instrument cases and little instrument stands, 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.240 and it was all compiled as a gift for her mother. 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.240 She also took advantage of her newfound independence to learn 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:49.640 about a subject that she had been introduced to by 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.080 the family friend we mentioned earlier, George Burgess McGrath, and 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.640 this was forensic science. McGrath had studied medicine at Harvard 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.000 and then had gone on to become a medical examiner. 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.480 And mc grath's work was immensely interesting to Francis. There's 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.120 a story that while she was ill at one point 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:08.800 he would come and visit her every night and talk 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.640 about his work uh to keep her company, and she 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:16.320 just became utterly engulfed in her passion for it UH. 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:18.760 And she became so interested in it that in the 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.200 nineteen thirties she actually gave Harvard an endowment of two 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:24.920 d and fifty thousand dollars, which has been estimated to 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:29.160 be about three point eight million in today's money, adjusted 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.360 for the establishment of a Department of Legal Medicine. And 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.680 it's often speculated in biographies of glessnarn Lee that she 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.480 was as a divorcee who now made her own decisions 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:42.440 and was truly independent. She was making up for the 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:44.520 education that she had been denied when she was a 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.200 young woman and had wanted to study but had not 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.360 been allowed to you by her family. She also continued 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.560 to give financial gifts to the university. Uh This went 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.640 on through the years to further the department's growth and development, 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.600 and her friend McGrath became chair of the new department 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.440 and taught mythology as part of the program. And as 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.920 we mentioned earlier, Frances was from a very wealthy family 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.040 and she had married well, even though the marriage did 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.560 not last. But she we cannot say enough how much 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.040 she did not fit the usual mold of a moneyed 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:19.520 society heiress. So while the other women of society were 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.360 throwing dinner parties for equally wealthy friends and associates, she 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.880 would often host large dinner party sport detectives and investigators 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.600 and scientists so she could pick their brains about their work. 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.400 I love it so much. I do too, And as 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:36.520 you know, part of her again meticulous character that people 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:38.800 love to talk about. In any interview with anybody that 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.880 knew her, they seemed to really want to be very 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.360 clear that this was an exacting person. Um like the 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:48.240 menus would just be really she would be so picky 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.520 about everything that they ate and it had to be perfect, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.680 and she you know wanted them to absolutely have the 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.199 best of everything, as though they were you know, her 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.560 equals in terms of financial footing in society. Um. These 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.960 dinner parties were apparently amazing. And in nineteen forty three 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.720 gless near Lee really made a bit of history because 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.720 she had been learning about forensics and had really been 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.600 kind of moving in these circles for so long that 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.360 she was made honorary Captain of the New Hampshire State 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:20.480 Police at this time, and that was a title that 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:25.880 no other woman held at that point. In she hosted 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.480 the first Harvard Associates and Police Science or HAPs A seminar. 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.200 This was an invitation only event where attendees were treated 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.360 to lavish meals and an intensive week of learning the 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:40.679 latest methods in crime scene investigation from experts in the field. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.160 And those were also equally meticulous these social events that 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.679 centered around it. There's a story that I read in 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.560 in one of my sources that she purchased an eight 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.640 thousand dollar China set for the hotel that hosted this 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:57.440 event every year, and it was only used for this event. 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.360 It was basically her china that she kept at the 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.000 hotel for this thing that would happen twice a year. 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:04.560 And because I guess There's wasn't good enough. I'm not 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.600 it was unclear why she felt compelled to buy this 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.520 whole set of china. But I'm gonna think maybe she 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.160 was just person nickety, I think a little bit um 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.400 And through all of her talks with investigators and detectives 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.439 and her discussions with mc grant about his work, this 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.880 idea had been forming in glessn Earlie's mind about how 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.960 she could personally further the field of investigation outside of 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.240 just being a financial donor. I mean, she was really 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.240 funneling a lot of money into this department at Harvard 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:37.600 with the intent that she was going to raise the standards, uh, 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.920 you know, through education of how criminal investigation worked. So 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.439 she came to realize that if the police had prolonged 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.400 access to a crime scene, they could find the clues 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.120 that would reveal the events that had occurred there, which 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.520 to us is kind of like, well, yeah, but crime 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.400 scenes just can't be maintained indefinitely, and the evidence there 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:03.360 can be corrupted or law. And additionally, for investigators in training, 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:05.960 there were just never enough crime scenes in which they 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.600 could practice their skills. So less Near Lee came up 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.920 with an idea to train investigators and to develop their 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.560 observation skills. So this is sort of the thing she's 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.839 most well known for over a seven year period from 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.400 ninety three to nineteen fifty, so some of this was 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:26.960 going on concurrently with her development of these seminars. She 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:31.640 assembled this group of projects called the Nutshell Studies of 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.880 Unexplained Death. And these were tiny dioramas that would have 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:40.880 been in most regards idyllic dollhouse scenes, weren't not for 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.480 the fact the fact that each of them depicted a 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.440 death of some kind. So each of these scenes, they're 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.800 eighteen and all was assembled based on case reports and 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.240 court records about actual deaths, and some of the dioramas 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:57.319 would combine multiple cases. And while all of the case 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.760 details were meticulously recreated, that they core in each grizzly 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.959 scene was chosen by the heiress. So these have been 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.960 described by many with some degree of amusement because they're 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:12.120 clearly like the impression that a wealthy woman who has 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.680 only known a life of luxury has of how the 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:19.640 middle and lower class lived. They're often pretty garish. Yeah, 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.360 it's one of those things that people kind of giggle about, uh, 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.360 even though you know she really wasn't into all of 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.760 the society trappings, it was clearly all she had known. 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.719 So even in their cabin in New Hampshire, which was 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.080 a very small and sort of simple affair, it's still 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.000 had the best of everything. And again, this is a 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.960 woman that's spent thousands of dollars to have the perfect 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.400 china for for police seminars. So clearly she knew a 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.680 certain esthetic and a certain life, and so when she 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.959 imagined what uh, poor people lived like, or even middle 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.120 class people, it was kind of very funny the things 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:55.880 she would put together and pick out as how their 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.839 houses would look. The smallest of these dioramas is eight 0:12:59.880 --> 0:13:03.160 by fourteen inches and the largest is a thirty inch 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:08.480 square three room dwelling. And I cannot stress enough how 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:12.520 incredibly detailed these are there in one inch to one 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:16.320 foot scale, but they have teeny tiny cigarettes that she 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.400 hand rolled. They have mice in the walls and sometimes 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.760 mice and little traps. There are socks that she hand 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:27.199 knitted on straight pins, and she would like whittle. She 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.960 would hand whittle tiny, tiny clothes pins that would fill 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.680 these dioramas. So they were full of, you know, sort 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.760 of the debris of life and and all of the 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.240 things that are just normal parts of any given home 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.960 in this teeny tiny scale that she had meticulously created. 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.040 So again the word meticulous keeps coming up. And there's 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:50.480 a reason she was. Uh. The skin on the dolls 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:54.520 that she used was carefully painted to mimic decomposition. In 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.920 some cases, if it was a case where the scene 0:13:57.920 --> 0:13:59.920 was supposed to be found with this body having been 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.880 here for a while, the blood spatter is carefully applied 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.840 to walls in cases where there is one. There's one 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:11.120 piece that's entitled burned cabin, and she had again meticulously 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.080 built this entire cabin and then she burned it down 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.920 with a blowtorch. Um And she was also using uh, 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.120 she didn't do all of this all by herself, although 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.720 most of it was, but she would also use carpenters. 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.400 Sometimes she had a carpenter that she retained and really trusted, 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.640 and he would work on some of the smaller woodworking 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.720 elements of it. So in these dioramas, the shades and 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.200 the drawers all work. The doors have these tiny functioning 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.880 locks with anybody keys. In the scenes where there are children, 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.600 there are miniature toys that are carefully recreated to mimic 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:47.040 full sized versions. And aside from their criminology impact, these 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.680 dioramas are just incredible works of art all on their own. 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.440 But the most important thing about these scenes, as much 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:56.960 as I could personally go on and on about all 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:01.680 of their little details that just completely kept you my attention, UH, 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:06.760 they provided really important learning models for investigators. So through 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:11.160 an analysis of each of these tiny crime scenes, UH, 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.880 a systematic approach to crime scene investigation was really developed. 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:20.880 She basically introduced these two UH investigators, police officers, and detectives, 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:23.560 and they used them to develop the methods that are 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:27.040 still being used today. UH. These include like using search 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.800 zones to analyze a crime scene and investigative patterns where 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.800 they'll sometimes circle a scene from like the outside and 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.560 spiral inward too so that they don't miss any details. 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.560 And these are standard procedures now and they came from 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.320 these tiny, little sort of dollhouse dioramas. Yeah, what's amazing 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.680 to me isn't just that their standard procedure now, but 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:53.400 that before anybody put together a methodology like this, the 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.520 whole field of crime scene investigation was kind of chaos. 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:58.840 Like we talked about in our acts Man of New 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:03.440 Orleans episodes. Yeah, like there people didn't really have a 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.200 standardized and methodical way of looking at a scene to 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.080 try to find evidence, and so they didn't and so 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:15.240 even when they would consult with uh other other investigators, 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.760 sometimes they just weren't working off the same page because 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.520 they didn't use the same approaches in all cases, and 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.760 it just made things really tricky and needlessly complicated. Uh So, 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:27.600 one of the things that she even did as part 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.640 of her seminars that she was hosting is she was 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:35.640 basically creating a network of investigative researchers, so men that 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:40.320 had gone through UH eventually I presume women attended, but 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:42.400 in the early days it was all men that had 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.400 gone through these classes, and these seminars would then be 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.520 connected to one another after they graduated the seminar, and 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.800 they would consult with each other, and she sort of 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.680 developed this, you know, she catalyzed this network developing where 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.200 detectives could talk to each other about things they had 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.600 found at crime scenes and really, um, you know, kind 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.200 of grow the field in a way that it never 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.439 would have grown otherwise if somebody hadn't said, let's all 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.160 get in a room together and talk about what we're doing. 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.520 It's very cool. So all of these scenes, I mean, 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:13.360 they all had a backstory of their own. They were 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.120 put together based on actual case reports and actual information 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.520 about crimes. But the goal, according to Gless nearly was 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.880 not to solve the crime that had happened in the diorama. 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:27.960 It was to practice observation, and the nutshells became part, 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.520 as I said, of these half seminars, and they've been 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.120 used to train investigators at the gathering for years, so 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.520 normally when she was first doing this, I don't know 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.400 if the methodology of using them has changed, but like 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.159 each student would be assigned two of the models and 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.679 they would get approximately ninety minutes of study for each scene. 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.560 And then later the student investigators would give a verbal 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.600 report before the group and they would all have a 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.960 discussion of their findings that would ensue and one of 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.720 this goal, one of the goals of this practice, as 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.280 I said, she was developing the network and this dialogue 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.280 among different investigators of how they would approach things. But 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.360 it was also to get students away from this concept 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.640 of following a hunch and instead to take in all 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:12.840 of the evidence that they see on a crime scene 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.000 with an open mind, like instead of just looking for 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.879 things that verify what they suspect has happened, she wanted 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.240 them to learn to look at everything in a crime 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:25.119 scene and not let any stray detail go because they 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:28.360 didn't think it supported what actually happened. This is reminding 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.040 me of like an episode of Bones. It should because 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.479 a lot of that grew out of this uh. She 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:37.960 is also allegedly I didn't put it in here initially, 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.840 but there have been rumors for years that she was 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:43.919 actually the inspiration for Angela Landsbury's character on Murder she 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:46.639 wrote because she was an older woman at this point 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.320 doing all of this excited crime scene investigation. Gless nearly 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.119 continued to advocate for medical training for leal agents and 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.960 systemized investigation practices and law enforcement all the way until 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.679 the end of her life. Yeah. Prior to herr UH 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.560 and her work with McGrath Coroners for example, didn't need 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.479 to have any medical training. It was, you know, an 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.600 appointment that they would get and then they would rely 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.880 on on the people below them to cover the medical basis. 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:14.840 But she really wanted to make sure that there was 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:19.399 a systematic way to uh make sure that trained medical 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.919 personnel were involved in investigations and it wasn't just people 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.399 guessing that did not know the workings of the human body. 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.200 Francis died in New Hampshire at the Rocks at the 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.080 small home that her family had had built there, on 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:36.960 January nine, two and four years later, the Department of 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.080 Legal Medicine that she had endowed at Harvard was dissolved 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:44.160 for lack of funding. The collection of Nutshell studies became 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.280 part of a public display at the Maryland Medical Examiner's 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:50.640 Office when the Department of Legal Medicine was closed. So 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.199 not only are they available for a public viewing, but 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:57.120 they're also used as teaching tools for forensic investigation. Yeah, 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:01.679 I think now you have to actually request permission to 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:03.920 go see them. I think there's one in the lobby. 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:06.639 I've read a few different reports, and they follow at 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.679 different times, like different years that they've been written. I 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.800 think there's one or two still in the lobby that 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:13.840 people can just walk in and see and you can 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:16.160 examine all of them if you just make an appointment 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:17.960 to go up. I think they're on the third floor 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:22.240 of the Maryland Medical Examiner's Office. Uh So, in the 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:26.360 Nutshells actually underwent a restoration that costs about fifty dollars, 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.040 just a general sort of upkeep and refresh, although they 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.440 still have the Kukie decor. In twenty twelve, a documentary 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:36.360 about the Nutshell Studies was made entitled of Dolls and Murder, 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.159 and it examines the place of Glessners Lee's work in 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.840 relation to the forensic world, as well as the role 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:47.800 of women in society. Yeah, a lot of modern historians 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.720 have kind of wanted to analyze her place in terms 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.679 of like an an early phase of feminism, which I 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:57.240 didn't get into here. It's covered by other people. I 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.320 really wanted to focus on her crime work. Uh But 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:02.560 one of the most interesting things about Glessner and Lee's 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:04.479 work is perhaps the fact that while she was a 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.399 self taught criminologist that was afforded access to this hobby 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.640 just because she was an heiress with immense wealth. She 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.959 became incredibly respected by the men that she worked with 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.119 and the men that she helped to train, and she 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:19.520 once said quote, I didn't do a lick of work 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.280 to deserve what I have. Therefore, I feel I have 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.840 been left in obligation to do something that will benefit everybody. 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.040 So if you're wondering why an heiress thought that it 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.679 would be fun to do this and became so impassionate 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:36.320 about developing criminology systems, that is why in her early 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.239 years of studying and working for forensic science, she may 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:42.800 have been seen as kind of this wealthy, eccentric lady, 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:47.360 but that image has been completely eclipsed by the important 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:52.560 influence of her work. Yeah, many men, uh. In looking 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:55.679 at research for this, I saw many men that she 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:57.600 had worked with through the years really described her as 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:00.479 one of the best criminologists they had ever met. Like 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:03.040 she definitely knew what she was talking about. She wasn't 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:06.840 just making cute dollhouse scenes to play with um. She 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.240 was very focused and it was it was not random 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.520 at all. She really was super smart, super well educated, 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.680 even if it was not in a formal setting. And 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.480