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litty_lydi 's review for:
informative
reflective
slow-paced
“Please don’t let things slump down and disappear. You five will have to learn to go ahead, no matter how many times you are knocked down. But you men already know this far better than I have ever learned it, and then there are five of you to compare the bruises.”
I'll start this off by saying that Frances Glessner Lee is another example of incredible woman who's tenacity despite her position as a woman at the time, progressed science, and she wanted none of the fanfare for it (and to no shock to anyone, didn't get it). The fact that this the first time I am hearing of her, given she basically funded an entire department at Harvard and my (as well as large number of the general publics) interest in forensics, is disappointing, but alas, not surprising. Frances was never one to back down, and truly put everything into trying to propel this field forward. She had no horse in this race, she genuinely just wanted things to be better.
“Question 1: What is the overall picture—the final attainment [of legal medicine and the department] aimed at?”
[Frances]: “To make available scientific (medical, legal or other) skill and knowledge for the solution of otherwise unexplained deaths, accidents, or those crimes concerned with personal injury and death, in order to determine the cause of death where it is obscure, to recognize preventable hazards of public health and to life, and to clear the innocent and expose the guilty.”
My main flaw with this book is the amount of time and information spent telling us about (i) the early early life of Frances and (ii) everyone else who wasn't Frances. To the first point, yes, give us a chapter about her early life, set the scene, make sure we know she's rich (Frances was privileged, and thankfully so, without her access to funds lord knows what this field would look like today). And to the second point, I do think it is important to discuss the influential characters in Frances life, i.e. Magrath, but when the book has her name in the title, a surprisingly large amount of the text was about anyone (or anything) else.
It truly felt like all research efforts went into those early years and less so on the, what I would consider, more interesting parts of Frances' story as she progressed forensics science. The minor details the author was able to pull about life pre 1900 vs the amount of "we don't know what happened with this" in the in mid 1900 parts was jarring. Frances did seem to be a relatively private person (e.g. destroying every photo of her and her ex husband so now none exist [mood]) so perhaps that explains some of it. The book was very heavily front loaded, and when we got to the more relevant parts of Frances story, i.e. the construction of the Nutshell Cases, they seemed generally glossed over and much less page space was dedicated to them.
Despite Frances starting her advocacy for the overhaul of the coroner system and death investigations, it is jarring to see how little we have progressed in this area. Reading about these systems as described in the 1940's and thinking of them as archaic (how can the individual investigating deaths not have medical experience??) these systems are still very much the same in some areas some 80 odd years later. It's chilling to think whether any progress would be made without her.
Also, this is not just a US problem. As a Canadian, I did the bare minimum due diligence to see how death investigations happen within this country, and not surprisingly, our system has the same weaknesses. We do not have any national standard for death investigations and depending on what province you are in, it is not required for the coroners to have medical experience. A lot of these issues tying to lack of resources and funding. You can't help but reflect and cringe at the amount of both wrongful convictions and uncontested murderer cases that are still occurring ...
Aside from the specifics of forensics and death investigations, Frances story, and Frances herself, highlights another important issue that is still rampant today: peoples general lack of confidence, and respect for those who don't have a piece of paper, or letters after their name, labelling them as "officially smart". The doctrine that only those with a degree can be truly knowledgeable and/or trustworthy on a subject is still rampant today (and this is coming from myself, an academic pursuing more letter for my name). Pursuit of higher education is still full of a plethora of barriers today, and just because a person may lack the means or ability to get that piece of paper should not immediately result in them and their thoughts being discredited.
“Chief amongst the difficulties I have had to meet have been the facts that I never went to school, that I had no letters after my name, and that I was placed in the category of “rich woman who didn’t have enough to do.” Also, being a woman has made it difficult at times to make the men believe in the project I was furthering, although sometimes, I must own, being a woman had its advantages… But the discouragements have been plentiful and severe, but still I feel that I have surmounted most of them and have succeeded in my purposes, perhaps more than I deserved but not more than the magnitude my subject merited.”
I always have a hard time rating non-fiction, balancing the kind and amount of information disseminated versus the writing style is a tricky balancing act. Frances herself deserves five stars, but considering this book is titled "The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee" a large bulk of this book was dedicated to other men. It's somewhere between a 3.5-4 stars for me.
𝗢𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝘂𝗰𝗸 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗱. 𝗔 𝘄𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘂𝘀? 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗼. 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘂𝘀 𝗵𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘂𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗹𝗱, 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲, 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀.
“Harvard has the reputation of being old fogeyish and ungrateful and stupid and I have indeed found this reputation to be deserved.”