This website supplements and extends the story told in Henrietta Schmerler and the Murder That Put Anthropology on Trial. There are aspects of the story too long, involved, controversial, or recent to have been included in the hard copy book. And there are issues arising from the book that can be further discussed or debated in this continuing forum.
The book is available at LULU or AMAZON.
Among the documents currently or soon to be made available on the website:
Many of these are already posted. Others will take time, and we ask for your patience. Through all of this, we welcome your queries, comments, and questions. Please send these via the CONTACT page, so they might in turn be responded to and posted.
Thanks for reading.
Gil Schmerler
The book is available at LULU or AMAZON.
Among the documents currently or soon to be made available on the website:
- The complete set of Henrietta's field notes found after her death and prepared for use at Henrietta's trial. These are now posted. (We have no evidence they were ever used in the trial, and - in fact - we were unable to gain access to them until nearly 10 years after our research began.)
- Selected documents from Golney Seymour's parole file, showing, in the eyes of some, a "model prisoner" -- and, following his first parole, a man regularly in trouble with the law until an ugly incident with a 10-year-old girl ended his first taste of freedom.
- Documents showing the intense "spin" put on this case (both the search for Henrietta's killer and the subsequent trial) by the fledgling FBI and its notorious director, J. Edgar Hoover.
- Letters from and to Henrietta on the reservation.
- Photos of family members and those involved in the murder case.
- Examples of the "pulp" magazine treatment of the case in the 1930s, '40s, '50s, and '60s.
- Samples of (often) heavily redacted documents from the FBI files we pried loose through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
- Letters, photos, and writings from the anthropologists who were part of the legendary department in which Henrietta studied at Columbia.
- Examples of later interpretations of the case by historians and other writers.
Many of these are already posted. Others will take time, and we ask for your patience. Through all of this, we welcome your queries, comments, and questions. Please send these via the CONTACT page, so they might in turn be responded to and posted.
Thanks for reading.
Gil Schmerler