18 Tiny Deaths

November 15, 2019
The eye-opening biography of Frances Glessner Lee (1878-1962), who brought American medical forensics into the scientific age. As journalist and former paramedic Goldfarb (Health Care Defined: A Glossary of Current Terms, 1997, etc.) explains, coroners, responsible for investigating unexplained deaths, originated in the Middle Ages; in America, they often paid little attention to medical progress. In the 1800s, all were political appointees, often the local undertaker or a party hack who needed a job. Incompetence was universal, and scandals and corruption were commonplace. Observers complained that "the cause of death certified by coroners was so untrustworthy that health department officials testified that the city's vital statistics would be more accurate if death certificates signed by coroners were excluded altogether." Worse, sloppy investigators allowed criminals to escape and often ensnared the innocent. By 1900, only a few large cities required a medical examiner with medical training. The daughter of a wealthy Chicago industrialist, Lee showed little interest in good works until, in her 50s, she spent a long period in a luxury convalescent hospital with George Magrath, an acquaintance and a medical examiner in Boston. A dedicated investigator, he regaled Lee with gruesome tales--generously recounted by Goldfarb--and made no secret of his despair over the state of his profession. Inspired, Lee took up the cause. In 1931, she approached Harvard's president, offering to pay for a chair in legal medicine, the first in the U.S. For the rest of her life, Lee lobbied energetically and spent liberally to reform the coroner system and promote education in death investigation, sponsoring seminars that continue to this day. She died with many honors--Erle Stanley Gardner wrote an obituary--but her battle is far from won. Coroners still serve about half the U.S. population in less than 30 states, and less than a third of those require scientific training. A genuinely compelling biography.

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December 1, 2019

Goldfarb (Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Maryland Dept. of Health) pays tribute to Frances Glessner Lee (1878-1962), the patron of medical examiners. In 1929, Lee, a wealthy Chicago native, became reacquainted at age 51 with the Suffolk County, MA, medical examiner when both were hospitalized in Boston. At that time, legal medicine, while established in Europe, was still in its infancy in the United States. Goldfarb covers Lee's life chronologically, showing her devotion to forensic science. At the same time, the author addresses the national development of death investigation science. As Goldfarb points out, there are continuing problems with nonmedical death investigations in the United States. Lee's funded Harvard's Department of Legal Medicine, became the first female police captain in the United States, and built meticulous miniature models of death scenes for investigators to study. VERDICT Goldfarb's clearly written and well-researched book is recommended for history and legal studies audiences. For further reading, suggest Corinne May Botz's The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.--Harry Charles, St. Louis

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 23, 2019
Journalist Goldfarb takes an eye-opening look in his fascinating biography at the crucial role played by heiress Frances Glessner Lee (1878–1962) in the development of U.S. scientific crime examination. Goldfarb puts Lee’s achievements in perspective by showing how, as recently as the early 20th century, there were no requirements of expertise on the part of the officials in charge of death investigations, who were often inept and sometimes corrupt. In 1929, Lee decided to use her financial resources to reform the system after reconnecting with an old friend, George Magrath, who had studied legal medicine in Europe. In addition to funding Magrath’s research, Lee used her skills at making miniatures to recreate crime scenes in exquisite detail as a teaching tool. Lee became a forceful proponent of death investigations becoming the responsibility of trained medical examiners, in a sustained campaign that included a 1935 meeting with J. Edgar Hoover to educate him about legal medicine. By making use of primary sources, including Lee’s own unpublished memoir, the author more than makes the case for his astonishing proposition that this “decorous grandmother with a preference for brimless Queen Mary hats... was nearly single-handedly responsible for the establishment of legal medicine” in the U.S. Goldfarb’s storytelling gifts will lead readers of insightful true crime to hope he will write more in the field. Devotees of TV’s CSI will have their minds blown. Agent: Tamar Rydzinski, Context Literary.

December 1, 2019
Frances Glessner Lee was not your average socialite. Born in a time when most women were relegated to the domestic sphere, Lee found a late-in-life career anchored in the macabre. Her grandmotherly fa�ade belied a tenacious personality determined to revolutionize death investigation practices. With the full weight of her steadfast will and family wealth behind her, Lee's mission was to replace the archaic coroner system with educated medical examiners and to enhance law enforcement's crime scene investigation skills. She began by subsidizing the Harvard Department of Legal Medicine. In addition to monetary support, Lee was influential in developing vital curricula. Her most famous contributions to the field of legal medicine are the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, extremely detailed, dollhouse-scale dioramas of crime scenes, used to teach visual evidence analysis. Goldfarb was selected as Lee's official biographer by her family and was given full access to the family's papers. Thorough research helps him paint a captivating portrait of a feminist hero and forensic pioneer. A stand-out addition to any library's true-crime collection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)