Frances glessner lee biography
Frances glessner lee biography
Frances glessner lee nutshells.
Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
Dioramas for teaching forensic science
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are a series of twenty intricately designed dollhouse-style dioramas created by Frances Glessner Lee (1878–1962), a pioneer in forensic science.[1][2] Glessner Lee used her inheritance to establish a department of legal medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1936, and donated the first of the Nutshell Studies in 1946[3] for use in lectures on the subject of crime scene investigation.
In 1966, the department was dissolved, and the dioramas went to the Maryland Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. where they are on permanent loan and still used for forensic seminars.[4][5]
The dioramas are detailed representations of death scenes that are composites of actual court cases, created by Glessner Lee on a 1-inch to 1 foot (1:12) scale.[6][4][5] Originally twenty in num