Seeking John Dillinger's preserved privates

[David Morris]

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/22/seeking-john-dilling.html

Celebrity bank robber John Dillinger died on this date, 75 years ago. In
honor of the iconic American outlaw, Oxford University Press posted a blog
entry about Dillinger's reportedly massive penis, rumored to be stored in
formaldehyde at the Smithsonian. The post was penned by Brown University
professor Elliott J. Gorn, author of Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That
Made America's Public Enemy Number
One<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195304837?ie=UTF8&tag=boingboing0e-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0195304837>.
>From OUPblog:

The story of Dillinger’s legendary proportions originated with a morgue
photo that circulated just after he died. There he is on a gurney, officials
from the Cook County Coroner’s office gathered around, and the sheet
covering him rising in a conspicuous tent at least a foot above his body,
roughly around his loins, though truth be told, it looks more like where his
naval should be. Probably his arm, rigid in rigor mortis, was under the
sheet. No matter. It looked like he died with an enormous hard-on. Newspaper
editors quickly realized how readers interpreted the photo, withdrew it,
retouched it, then reprinted it in later wire-service editions, with the
sheet nice and flat against the dead man’s body.

But the damage was done. Soon, Dillinger’s likeness appeared in crude
pornography. Mostly, however, rumors of his enormous manhood persisted in
oral tradition until roughly thirty years after his death, when it congealed
into the urban belief tale centered on the Smithsonian.

In a literal sense, the story is almost certainly not true. Dillinger’s
autopsy reported nothing unusual about the man. Government workers just look
perplexed when asked about the legendary object. No one has ever produced
substantial proof that the famed member exists.
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