Scope and Content Note
The papers of Gloria Elaine Hollister Anable (1900-1988) span the years 1916-2003, with most of the material concentrated in the period 1929-1936. Journals, correspondence, writings, clippings, notes, and photographs comprise the bulk of the collection. It is arranged alphabetically by type of material or name of topic and thereunder chronologically.
The collection primarily documents Anable’s activities in the 1930s as a research associate on William Beebe’s oceanographic expeditions under the auspices of the New York Zoological Society. During this period before her marriage she became widely known (under her maiden name Gloria Hollister) with the media generating publicity about her work. Joining Beebe’s team in 1928, she helped establish his research station on Nonsuch Island, Bermuda, and participated in inaugural deep sea explorations in the bathysphere designed by Beebe and Otis Barton. Notable in the papers are mostly intact holographic journals from 1930 to 1933 that include Anable’s ichthyological notes, ships’ logs, comments on expedition personnel and the bathysphere, and other observations from expeditions in Bermuda, the Caribbean, and the Pearl Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Photographs, Anable’s articles, and clippings in the papers also relate to this period.
Anable earned further recognition as leader of a zoological expedition into the seldom explored interior of British Guiana (present-day Guyana) in 1936. Material in the papers related to this trip include correspondence, clippings, background material, ephemera, and notes for articles and lectures. She left the zoological society in 1941 and devoted time to conservation issues, most notably as a co-founder and leader of the Mianus River Gorge Wildlife Refuge and Botanical Preserve in Westchester, New York. The papers include a brief amount of printed matter relating to her work with this project.