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The Underappreciated Nikola Tesla, and Other Under-Recognized Historic Figures

Khalid Elhassan January 12, 2020 32 min

Nikola Tesla - A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers — Nikola Tesla. Pintrest

9. The Sherlock Holmes Fan Who Pioneered Forensic Science

Wealthy heiress and society dame Frances Glessner Lee, creating one of her ‘Nutshell Studies’. Harvard Magazine

Chicago society dame Frances Glessner Lee (1878 – 1962) had a hobby that was quite unusual for women of her day: solving crimes and helping advance the science of forensics. She ended up developing a training system for homicide detectives that she called Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Deaths, parts of which are still in use today. She is considered the godmother of forensic science.

The daughter of an industrialist who became fabulously wealthy from investing in International Harvester, Lee got hooked on Sherlock Holmes tales as a young girl. She dreamt of growing up to become a crime solver and wanted to attend college, but her family would not permit it. She was also discouraged from pursuing her interests in forensic pathology. Her dreams did not die, however, and after the death of her father and then her brother, she inherited the International Harvester fortune at age 52.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.