Brief Bio:

Hello.  My name is Craig Lebakken and I am a senior majoring in History.  

Working Notes:

 1925-1926

It was interesting but not suprising to find out that most of the men did some kind of labor job whether they were a laborer, a coal miner, or some kind of factory job.  A lot of the married women were housewives but not all.  During my first day working I worked the year 1925.  There were a lot of natural deaths such as heart disease and strokes but there were also some interesting ones.  The most interesting to me were the self-induced abortions which resulted in the woman's death.  The women died of peritonitis.  Peritonitis is inflamation of the peritoneum which lines the wall of the abdomen.  I found two cases of this where both were teenage single women.  Another thing that caught my eye was the amount of automobile accidents and people getting hit by trains.  I plan to write more about the train and automobile accidents. CL 9/9/07

 1926-1927

This past week I worked on case files dating 1926 through 1927.  I found a lot more deaths due to criminal actions in these years than 1925.  The crimes were basically murders and manslaughter.  I tried to search for the crime rates for those years or even just the amount of crimes that took place that year compared to other years but I have been unsuccessful so far.  The deaths in which a person was charged with manslaughter were a little confusing.  Each manslaughter case dealt with the person being killed riding with the person charged with manslaughter.  The driver for instance wrecked into a pole and the result was the driver being charged because the passenger died.  Another interesting murder was a murder-suicide.  A woman shot her husband and then turned the gun on herself.  However, I was disappointed because no motives or anything were given.  I also found another interesting and unusual death which I will post.  CL/9/15/07

 1927-1928

The case files I worked on this week were from the years 1927-1928.  This week was pretty boring in terms of finding interesting deaths.  I have noticed that with murders and suicides a bright pink police progress report is included in the case files.  Along with that finding one of the cases I had dealt with a death related to alcohol.  Where four interogation reports were included that dealt with the police trying find the moonshine dealer where the deceased purchased the alcohol.  On the top right corner of the press reports the cause of death is written just to make the cause of death more noticable I guess.  Just something different I noticed about the reports.  CL/9/21/07

 1930

For my fourth entry I have been working on case files dating June and July of 1930.  Now that the Great Depression is in full effect I have noticed some changes in cause of deaths.  I have noticed a lot more suicides than in previous years ranging from gunshot wounds, poisonings, and jumpers.  There also seems to be more murders being committed.  With the suicides however, most of the case files do not give a lot of information about the suicides so one can only speculate that the depression had something to do with it.  I have found two suicides with notes and one where the suicide was premeditated.  The suicide that was premeditated was very interesting because the insurance company was holding the money to be given to man's wife until they completed their own investigation because they found reports that the man's wife said she didn't care if he died and she made sure she didn't him down from the tree until she knew he was dead.  CL/10/03/07

Jan. 1931

The suicides are still relatively high when compared to the years before the great depression.  There are a couple of cases worth mentioning because they are not the norm in terms of what is contained in the case file.  The first case was in Jan. of 1931 where a man died of a cerebral hemorrhage a common death among the elderly but it contained a very detailed autopsy report the first I have seen so far.  The report was five pages long from the Southside Hospital.  It contained the person's name, age, time of death, the current time, autopsy #, and the doctors performing the procedure.  A detailed description of the heart, lungs, liver, gall bladder, spleen, kidneys, pelvis, and the adrenal and pancreas was also given.  I have seen autopsy reports before but not as detailed as this one.  Another case involved a woman dying in a house explosion caused by a gas leak.  Contained in the file was a newspaper clipping showing the remains of the house and a detailed map.  The map included the splitting of the house into seperate rooms and showed where the gas pipes ran into the home.  When the pipes were dug up it showed a coupled pipe that was leaking gas into the living room through the foundation.  It did not tell how the gas was ignited.  CL/10/05/07

1932

As I went through the files in 1932 I've noticed a smaller amount of industrial accidents compared to previous years I have done.  The deaths that seem to dominate are deaths by natural causes, followed by murders and suicides, and deaths by accidents such as drowning while swimming and carbon monoxide poisoning.  One of the files I had described an infant who died of rickets, this being the first death of this sort for me.  Ms. Colligan informed me that it was a disease caused by a vitamin D deficency.  Rickets is a softening of the bones in children potentially leading to fractures and deformity. Rickets is among the most frequent childhood diseases in many developing countries. The predominant cause is a vitamin D deficiency, but lack of adequate calcium in the diet may also lead to rickets.

Treatment involves increasing dietary intake of calcium, phosphates and vitamin D. Exposure to ultraviolet (sunshine), cod liver oil, halibut-liver oil, and viosterol are all sources of vitamin D.  CL/10/12/07

1938-1939

These years have shown an increase in the number of natural deaths such as heart disease and related diseases.  There were still suicides and murders but not nearly as many as there used to be.  One of the suicides I had included a printed copy of the suicide note which is the first one I encountered.  On the top of one of the papers I had in a case file said Allegheny County celebrating 150 years which is worth noting.  CL/10/19/07

1940-1941

Natural deaths and accidental deaths still outnumber the suicides and murders and other kind of criminal activity that has been taking place in Pittsburgh and around it.  I have noticed a difference in some of the case files lately.  The front of a case file usually only says verdict on it but lately I noticed that if the death was a result of a murder the case file would have grand jury stamped on the front of it and the crime would be listed under it.  I found a case file that I thought would be worth sharing because it showed a lot of detail in describing how the deaths occured.  There was a fire in Mt. Lebanon in 1940 around 2:30 AM where a mother and her son died as a result of the fire leaving behind the father and another child.  The case included a detailed map of the 2nd floor of the house in which all the rooms and their contents were neatly drawn.  It marked the bed of the youth who died in the fire and it also marked where the mother and son were found dead.  The report also included a detailed report from the firemen who put the fire out and a description of what they did while putting out the fire.  CL/10/26/07

1941-1942

There are a number of things to add this week.  First, I noticed that when undetermined is the cause of death it is usually followed by natural causes in the case file this is the first time I have seen this done.  And if someone dies and they are of the Christian Science belief it has undetermined as cause of death and christian science next to it.  The christian science faith believes that a person should not get medical attention if they need it and should allow God to heal them.  Christian Scientists hold that the reality of being and of all existence is spiritual, not material. They see this spiritual reality as the only reality and all else as illusion or 'error'. Christian Science acknowledges that we all seem to be experiencing a material existence, but holds that this experience ultimately yields to a true spiritual understanding of God and creation. They believe that this is how healing through prayer is possible. ^[1]                           

I have also noticed that when the cause of death is due to an industrial accident that a large report is filed and tries to fix what happened so it won't occur again in the future.  This is a new development that I've seen in the 1940s.  CL/11/02/07

1943-1944

While processing reports from this time period I came across papers and documents I have not seen before.  A Report for a man who died from a coronary occlusion included his nationalization papers because he was from Sweden and an ID card for public assistance which allowed him to purchase food stamps.  His picture was on the nationalization paper and the file also contained two other pictures of the man.  CL/11/10/01

1945-1946

This week has been pretty interesting in respect to the coroner case files.  I discovered a plane crash which is rare where a 35 year old man with 3 years flying experience crashed on rt.19 in Wexford.  The plane was carrying a passenger and the pilot.  The passenger lived but the pilot died.  I do not know what type of plane it was but it was a small one.  The passenger was recorded saying that all of a sudden the plane jerked and stalled he did not know why.  There is another report worth mentioning involving a new born baby.  A newborn baby was found in the bathroom stall in the ladies room of the Joseph Horne store behind the toilet.  A cleaning lady found the bag which contained the baby and took it to the lost and found.  However, it was not until she went back to the lost and found and went through the bag that she found the baby.  The umbilical cord was still attached to the baby and the other end looked like it was ripped off.  The cause of death was suffocation because there were cotton balls found in the back of the baby's throat.  The baby had to have died shortly after birth because the inside of the bag had blood on it.  CL/11/16/07