Origins: The Case of the Autographed Corpse
Neglected files in a university archive illuminated a rich historical true-crime story
This is the third in my series of Origins essays about the spark and development of my books, articles, and other works. You’ll find the first in the series here and the second here.
In this essay, I go behind the scenes of my article “The Case of the Autographed Corpse,” which appeared in the print edition of Smithsonian Magazine in 2020.
The archivist wheeled to my table three carts loaded with eighteen boxes of files and manuscripts. She looked at me apologetically before leaving. I did not understand the reason for her contrite expression until I opened one of the boxes.
The contents were a mess, and it was clear the archive had never inventoried or organized. Folders lay upside down, their brittle papers spilling out and crushed under other folders. Rusted paper clips, petrified into inflexibility, clamped together frayed batches of papers. Labels on the folders were missing or illegible. The box smelled like the inside of a vacuum cleaner, with a hint of tobacco smoke.
What I saw and smelled was not discouraging. It meant that nobody had opened this box — or, as it turned out, any of the other seventeen — for a long…
