From BGSU OFFICE OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
A gruesome murder and a museum’s efforts to respectfully address the case is the topic of the next presentation in the Bowling Green State University Center for Archival Collections 2019 Local History Publication Award Lecture Series.
Dr. Rebecca Mancuso, associate professor in the Department of History, will discuss her article “The Finger Saga: One Museum’s Quest to Turn the Macabre into the Meaningful” (The Public Historian, May 2018), winner of the CAC’s 2018 Local History Publication Award in the Academic Scholar category. Her free talk will begin at 4 p.m. Oct. 29 in the Pallister Conference Room at Jerome Library.
Mancuso’s compelling article recounts the horrific murder of Mary Bach by her husband Carl Bach in rural Wood County in 1881, and how Mary Bach’s severed fingers came to be housed at the Wood County Historical Center and Museum. While the “Fingers in the Jar” had for years been a popular attraction at the museum, more recently the museum has taken great care to examine and consider the moral and ethical problems behind this controversial artifact. Mancuso details how the museum is now exploring how it can display these remains in a humanizing and respectful way that facilitates public education and reflection on domestic homicide in all its brutality, historically and today.
The Local History Publication Award was established to encourage and recognize authors of outstanding publications about northwest Ohio history. The Academic Scholar Division includes works prepared and submitted by authors who are professional writers or academicians.
