Miniatures to resolve crimes

Have you heard of Frances Glessner Lee, the "Mother of forensic science" and maker of "the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death"?
Frances Glessner Lee was born into a wealthy Chicago family in 1878. Fascinated by crime stories, she wanted to study forensic science, but her father was against it. Forensic science at the time was a men's world. In the thirties, after her father and brother passed away, she inherited the family's fortune and decided to invest it to help forensic science. She founded the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard in 1936. She herself studied the subject around the age of 50. To help "freeze" crime scenes, she combined her hobby of making dollshouses (a popular hobby for women in wealthy families in the early 20th century) with her knowledge of forensics to make miniature crime scenes to help police resolve crime mysteries. She made about 20 nutshells, 18 of which are still used today to train detectives. These "nutshells" are now preserved in Baltimore where she lived, and not open to the public (although it seems they can be viewed by appointement in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner). The dioramas were exhibited from October 2017 till January 2018 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
The "nutshells" were made in 1:12 scale, based on actual crimes scenes after extensive research, with objects placed carefully to provide clues to the crimes. They have an amazing level of detail, down to the cigarettes butts in the ashtray (cigatettes she rolled herself with paper and tobacco and half smoked to make them look real), copies of real newspapers, books with real pages, working locks on windows and doors. Fascinating!

Frances Glessner Lee passed away in 1962, leaving an incredible heritage to forensic science and legal medicine.

check out the picture gallery on the website of the Smithsonian American Art Museum here:
https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/nutshells