18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Invented Modern Forensics

The fascinating story of the forgotten woman who pioneered forensic science As America ramps up efforts toward victory in World War II, Frances Glessner Lee stands at the front of a wood-paneled classroom within Harvard Medical School and addresses the young men attending her seminar on the developing field of forensic science. A grandmother without a college degree, Lee may appear better suited for a life of knitting than of investigation of unexpected death. Her colleagues and students, however, know her to be an extremely intelligent and exacting researcher and teacher--the perfect candidate, despite her gender, to push the scientific investigation of unexpected death out of the dark confines of centuries-old techniques and into the light of the modern day. Lee's decades-long obsession with advancing the discipline of forensic science was a battle from the very beginning. In a time when many prestigious medical schools were closed to female students and young women were discouraged