Jean Wilson Murray's Blog

Some women are just born adventurers. Gloria Hollister was one of them. She wasn’t about to play with dolls. At 10 she was exploring underwater and at 14 she was raising prize-winning chickens. Birds and bathyscaphes.

Beginning Diver

Gloria Hollister was born in 1900 in New York City, but she spent much of her childhood at the family estate near the Mahwah River, where she spent most of her time with animals and swimming and diving in the river. She was closest to her father, a doctor, who encouraged her to a career in the natural sciences.

What intrigued me most about Gloria was her utter lack of fear.  At age 10 she was curious about what was at the bottom of the river, so she found a long glass tube. Then, she persuaded two friends to tie some large stones to her waist and she sank to the bottom with the tube. That didn’t work too well – there was no way for her to breathe out through the tube.

Undaunted, she found a large oil can and down she went again with the stones tied around her. This worked better, but not for long. I’m amazed at her daring and also the stupidity of her friends who let her talk them into this. Kids!

Gloria and the Oil BirdOilbird – Steatornis carpensis | Totodu74 [CC BY-SA 3.0]

Her education centered on zoology and she received her master’s degree in Zoology from Columbia in 1925. She found work on an expedition to British Guiana. On the way back from this expedition she stopped in Trinidad, where she decided to look for a rare bird called the “oil bird,” found only on the island, in  Aripo Cave. She was fascinated by the fact that its young are covered with fat that can be boiled to make butter. It’s also the only nocturnal fruit-eating bird in the world.

It wasn’t easy to get to the nest, but Gloria, ever the daring adventurer, wasn’t going to let the difficulty stop her. She had to climb down into a gorge 100 feet high with perpendicular sides. She started jumping from rock to rock. Then she had to swim in a deep pool swarming with freshwater crabs that bit her. Then she had to climb or slide down several waterfalls to finally get to the next. She was excited to find several young birds and she managed to carry one out with her and back to New York.

Her work on this expedition gave Gloria an invitation to join the Society of Women Geographers in 1928.

Gloria and the BathysphereMap of Bermuda – Coral reefs in blue | Public domain

In 1929, William Beebe (naturalist, marine biologist) invited Gloria to join his diving expedition to Bermuda, as part of the Department of Tropical Research at the New York Zoological Society,  to study the sea life in the coral reefs that surround the islands. She wore a diving helmet and her swimsuit as she walked around at 20 feet, and she sat on coral reefs and sketched underwater.

The bathysphere was a deep-sea submersible with windows that was unpowered and was lowered into the ocean on a cable.  It had a light and was connected to a radio. Designed by Otis Barton for Beebe for underwater observation, it was used in Bermuda between 1930 and 1934. Because of safety concerns, it was shelved and replaced by a bathyscaphe.

As a member of the staff of the expedition, Gloria’s job was to communicate with the bathysphere, taking and receiving messages and instructions, and recording observations.   She also had to keep an eye on the weather. Dr. Beebe talked rapidly, so she had to be quick in her recordings. She was itching to go down in the bathysphere, and Beebe finally allowed her a dive on her 30th birthday, July 11, 1930. 

The sea conditions were…perfect, the sphere was in top shape with plenty of oxygen…, and Hollister…didn’t have to be asked twice. She dove into the sphere. For Gloria, this was a dream come true.

She said, “Looking directly out, blue seemed the dominant tone, but, peering downward, we stared into an infinite depth of dazzling blue-purpose. This was an awful colour….” 1

 She went down to 410 feet that day, but a month later she descended to 1208 feet, a world deep-sea diving record (which has since been topped many times). Still, considering the danger of the bathysphere, it’s quite a testimony to her courage.  

Gloria in the Jungle

In 1936 Gloria ran her own expedition for the DTR through the jungles of British Guiana, specifically for the Bronx Zoo. They had to travel through dense jungle and had to deal with both downed planes and flooded boats. The team photographed 43 previously undiscovered waterfalls as they flew around the area. 

Most important for the team was their study several rare birds, especially the hoatzin bird, a prehistoric-looking species with peculiar-looking claws. 

She joined the American National Red Cross, and later founded a conservation group to preserve the Mianus River Gorge in Bedford, New York. She was able to register it as the the first national history landmark to be registered by the U.S. Department of the Interior. 

Notes/Sources

Wild Things. Trail blazing for women scientists: Gloria Hollister Anable’s papers. September 9, 2014. https://www.wcsarchivesblog.org/trail-blazing-for-women-scientists-gloria-hollister-anables-papers/

Brad Matsen. Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss. Vintage, 2006.

William Beebe. Half Mile Down. Forgotten Books, 2018. 

Beebe, ︎

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