I was inspired to write the following post by reading the story in The Boston Globe about New Hampshire, Heiress, Frances Glessner Lee who shared my intrigue with solving murders (I only solve them by reading mysteries and watching PBS series) and arts and crafts. She made stunning dioramas to depict and help analyze crime scenes.
After police called in the forensic scientists from Harvard Medical School in 1940 to help investigate a brutal murder- it became apparent that techniques needed improvement. For example, a Harvard pathologist had once arrived at a home to find officers scrubbing blood evidence from the wall because they didn’t want to bump against it and stain their uniforms.
Frances Glessner Lee was on a mission to revolutional murder investigations by stepping into the male-dominated world of detective work later in life like a real Miss Marple from Agatha Christie’s novels. She was considered one of the world’s most astute criminologists.
Lee was the driving force behind Harvard’s new department of legal medicine, the first of its kind in the United States. She contributed much of her personal fortune and as you will see artistic talent with the goal of making investigations fair and thorough. As a divorced mother of three, Lee finally found her calling! The following pictures depict some of the dioramas that help solve investigations.
Lee’s carpenter helped create the scenes, but Lee insisted on created the victims herself- such as knitting tiny stockings with straight pins and painting a face in the precise shade of red indicative of carbon-monoxide poisoning. Lee could have never imagined the advances in the field of forensics that included DNA analysis…. I find it rewarding to see a direct link between the creation of dioramas and the development of a fulfilling and meaningful career. This is the magic of occupations….
Need some materials for your diorama? Here are a few my son made out of household materials…. soap, paper and Sculpe. Sculpe may not be a household material but it should be!
