A researcher conducts forensic tests in Northwestern’s Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, circa 1930. The facility — which included two chemical labs, a photographic darkroom, lie detector, and a library with about 1,000 books on criminal investigation — was established in 1929 in response to Chicago’s Capone-era gangland violence.
Photo courtesy of Northwestern Library Archives
LEFT BEHIND:
FORENSIC MEMORY AND ‘TRACES’ OF IDENTITY Historian Ken Alder studies identity at the intersection of science and law At the start of the 20th century, the Institute of Legal Medicine in Lyon, France, was the world’s foremost center of forensic science, transforming the practice of criminology around the globe. Dr. Edmond Locard — chief of the Institute — speculated that “every contact leaves a trace.” By this he meant that criminals leave hints of themselves at crime scenes, crime scenes leave hints on criminals, and these traces can be measured and analyzed to tell a story: a material memory of the crime. This founding principle of forensic science is the basis for Northwestern professor Ken Alder’s project on the “forensic self.” Alder jokingly refers to his office in Harris Hall on the University’s Evanston campus as his “laboratory.” But despite his undergraduate degree in physics
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