Michael McDowell was born in 1950 in Enterprise, Alabama, and graduated from T.R. Miller High in Brewton, Alabama. He received a B.A. and an M.A. from Harvard College, and a Ph.D in English from Brandeis University in 1978, based on a dissertation entitled "American Attitudes Toward Death, 1825–1865." His extensive and diverse collection of death memorabilia, including items such as death pins, photographs and plaques from infant caskets, was acquired by Chicago's Northwestern University in...