Edwin W. Teale, "Now Real Detectives Beat Sherlock Holmes," Popular Science Monthly, August 1931
As this article on the newly established Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory at Northwestern University School of Law demonstrates, Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character, introduced many readers to scientific crime detection—as it was and might become—and was an important influence on the development of forensic science.
Popular Science Magazine
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Utopian forensics
In the 19th and 20th centuries, glowing newspaper and magazine accounts of forensic technologies, real and imaginary, fueled public support for scientific crime detection. Edwin W. Teale's series of illustrated articles, published in Popular Science Monthly in 1931, conveys some of the enthusiasm for scientific crime detection. "Working slowly, painstakingly, utilizing every branch of science at hand," Teale rhapsodizes, "modern man-hunters are arriving at astonishing solutions in baffling crimes. Their work is analytical, methodical; but their results are amazing, magical."
