President Theodore Roosevelt had many challenges during his career… corruption in the New York police force, the creation of the Panama Canal, the Spanish-American war, protecting the Grand Canyon and other national monuments, and groundbreaking anti-trust legislation…but the greatest challenge he faced was a volcano in a blue dress, his eldest daughter – flouter of convention, spicy of demeanor, and perhaps the world’s first media superstar who admirers across the world came to call America’s “Princess Alice.”
Time Travel With The History Chicks
Sources and media recommendations will be on the shownotes for Part Two
Break music: Haper Active, A Fork Where A Fork Don’t Fit
In the early 1500s in Mesoamerica, modern-day Mexico, a very young child who would come to be known as La Malinche was sold into slavery by her own family. Through a series of curious circumstances, she began working as a translator and cultural interpreter for Hernán Cortés and became one of the most famous (or infamous) characters in the story of Spain’s conquest of Mexico. For the most part, we have to look at the details of her life through the lives of the people around her, then turn our heads sideways and squint because how she is seen, depends on the angle of your, or historians, view. Even her name is shrouded in mystery: was she Malintzin, Malina, Marina, Doña Marina, or La Malinche? She was called all of those, but her true, original name is lost to history.
SHOWNOTES ARE UNDER CONSTRUCTION, COME BACK LATER FOR ALL OF OUR MEDIA RECOMMENDATIONS
Time Travel With The History Chicks
Books!
KIDS:
Web!
The Denver Art Museum had an exhibition of Malinche’s life through art back in 2022, but since nothing dies on the internet, we can all still cyber-visit it! Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche
The murals at Palacio National in Mexico City: Here’s some information about Malinche’s portion and here’s a good look to grasp the size of this art!
Moving or Audible Pictures!
The Rest is History Podcast has an (entertaining and conversational as well as educational) series on the Fall of the Aztecs that goes into depth on Cortes and his conquest of Mexico (and Malinche is in there, of course!)
End music: End of the Story by The Spoons, used with permission
The shownotes are coming, but we wanted to get this news to you as soon as possible: Registration is open for our Field Trip to Austria, June 20-30, 2024!! Head on over to Like Minds Travel and take a gander at the itinerary. This is going to sell out, which sounds like Cyber Monday blah blah, but it’s true. The people that you hear on these travelogues who are on their second or more trips are there because they acted fast. We hope to see you there!
Frances Glessner Less was a woman of unyielding determination and creative energy who used everything at her disposal (invcluding a vast inheritance) for both the common good and to further science in the field we now know as forensic Medicine.
Frances Lee was born into a very wealthy family on March 25, 1878, in Chicago, Illinois. Her father’s position as a founding executive (at the company that would eventually become International Harvester) funded the family’s lavish life in both Chicago and at their summer home called The Rocks, in New Hampshire. Her mother was an intellectually curious member of Chicago society who put her efforts not only into the arts (helping found the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for instance) but also in assisting her two children to pursue their own interests.
Frances’ brief marriage resulted in three children, but her interest in medicine, science, law enforcement, and various crafts converged to forge her legacy when she put her everything into helping found the Department of Legal Medicine (the forerunner to forensic science) at Harvard University. She would go on to not only personally build a library for the college in this field, but to spread the science of it into communities all across the United States with lectures and twice-annual seminars for law enforcement personnel beginning in the 1940s
At these seminars, which she organized and ran, she crafted exquisitely detailed, miniature crime dioramas for the attendees to sharpen their skills in detective work and expand their knowledge of the science of death. Called the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, they aren’t macabre dollhouses, they are highly detailed learning tools…and they’re still in use today.
Frances Glessner Lee, at the age of 83, died on January 27, 1962 at her home. She’s buried in the Maple Street Cemetary in Bethlehem, New Hampshire.
The Rocks in Bethlehem NH...the perfect place to buy your Christmas tree (and hike the trails, take classes, and maybe have a wedding. To learn more about the fire and restoration projects since, visit THE ROCKS. Harvard Associates in Police Science is still an active organization that holds an annual Frances Glessner Lee Homicide Investigation seminar. Frances is mentioned on the Harvard Medical School History website in regard to the Nutshell Studies and the Legal Medicine department…but not as boldly as we would like. Maybe this was an artifact from her “behind the scenes days” because it couldn’t possibly be an intentional slight…could it?
And a history that only makes sense after you listen to the episode but we love a good Rabbit Hole: History of Coca-Cola.
Moving Pictures!
Season 17, episode 14 of NCIS has it all: Nutshell-style dioramas, mentions of Frances, an involved podcast audience…okay, that’s all it has but, you know, entertaining. Catch it wherever you watch that long-running show.
The documentary, Of Dolls and Murder, is on YouTube, but it requires permissions to watch it, so you can search for it yourself over there.
CBS Sunday Morning’s coverage of the showing of the Nutshell studies:
Break music: The Banks of Green Willow, by George Butterworth; end music, Victim of Crime, by Heifervescent used with permission, ilicense Music.