Questions & Answers

Else Bostelmann: Deep Sea Illustrator

How did you first learn of her?

I was researching Joseph Morrison, the 20th-century mollusk specialist’s whose collection I was working on at the National Museum of Natural History. Visiting the Smithsonian Archives, I found he had traveled as a college research student to a Tropical Research Station amidst the British Guiana jungle. This station, Kartabo, had been developed by the American naturalist, William Beebe. Fascinated with Beebe’s work I read the book, The Remarkable Life of William Beebe:  Explorer and Naturalist. It was there that I learned of Else Bostelmann.

What challenges did you face writing about Else?

My first challenge was to try to find information on her childhood. Having grown up in Germany, there were limited resources about Bostelmann’s family other than her parents’ names. Unfortunately, many of her diaries and journals were destroyed in a flood.

I had to work on my networking to locate some of Bostelmann’s written work. With the help of my local library’s interlibrary loan program, I was able to receive magazine articles from the 1930s-1950s. Heather C. Thomas, Reference Librarian at the Library of Congress was able to get me copies of articles from The Christian Science Monitor that Bostelmann had written and illustrated.

While I was looking for old National Geographic magazines that contained Beebe and Bostelman’s work, I was able to use the Smithsonian Natural History Library. Gil Taylor, assistant Department Head, was kind enough to retrieve issues and photocopy Bostelmann’s pictures to study.

 I also contacted writers of various articles to learn more about their work with Bostelman. One of those Samantha Muka, Assistant Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, shared a chapter she had written on marine artists with citations that I found valuable.

Was there anything you learned that you weren’t able to include in your piece?

I concentrated on Bostelmann’s time with Beebe. However, she continued to be a painter, illustrator, writer, and designer up until her death in December 1961. In addition to other scientific work, she illustrated and published fourteen children’s books. She also had a touring exhibit “Undersea Life and Exotic Flowers” and designed textiles with her sea life motif.

Ancient Plants tell Stories of Today

How did you come up with this topic?

I signed up for the Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, “Plants in the Past: Fossils and the Future.” There I listen to speakers from the U.S and around the world.

The point at which I became enamored was when I joined a behind-the-scenes tour of the Joseph F. Cullman Library of Natural History. We were guided through the hallways to a locked door outside one of the two securest locations in the museum: the Cullman Library and the Gem Vault. Using her badge, the guide she allowed us to enter the library where we were greeted by Leslie Overstreet, the curator of the Natural History Rare Books. Overrstreet explained the library’s rare books were hand pressed, bound, and printed before 1840.

It was there that I viewed a picture of a fossil fragment 55 million years old in Edmund T. Artis’s, book Antediluvian Phytology (1838).  I tried to imagine what Artis thought when he collected the Carboniferous plant fossil fragment. He’d tried to envision it as a whole organism even though it had little in common with existing plants. Back then, the geologic time before humans was a controversial concept even to some scientists.

“Ancient Plants tell Stories of Today” hold an important lesson for us today?

The rapid biological change taking place today can be better understood by scientists analyzing environmental evidence preserved in plant fossils. It’s important to understand that the present rise in CO2, and the heatwave it will cause, will persist for thousands or tens of thousands of years. Hopefully, people will gain a larger sense of legacy and support ways to combat climate change through scientific research, advocating for policies to mitigate climate change, and promoting clean energy innovation.