19 Facts About Gloria Hollister

Gloria Hollister Anable was an American explorer, scientist, and conservationist.

Gloria Hollister served as research associate in the Department of Tropical Research of the New York Zoological Society, specializing in fish osteology, and she made record-setting dives in a submersible called the Bathysphere off the coast of Bermuda in the 1930s.

Gloria Elaine Hollister was born to Elaine Shirley Hollister and Dr Frank Canfield Hollister in the family's home at 264 West 77th Street in New York City.

Gloria Hollister's father encouraged this love and partnered with her to raise and care for prize-winning poultry and horses as well as a host of pet cats and dogs.

In 1920, Gloria Hollister enrolled at Connecticut College for Women, taking her childhood love and applying it toward a major in Zoology under the tutelage of Pauline Dederer.

Gloria Hollister received her MS in Zoology from Columbia in Spring 1925.

In early 1928, weary of spending long hours inside of a laboratory and yearning for an opportunity to return to the outdoors, Gloria Hollister applied for a position with the famed naturalist William Beebe in his Department of Tropical Research at the New York Zoological Society.

Gloria Hollister's work helped to extend scientific knowledge about deep sea and reef fish.

Also in Bermuda, Gloria Hollister set the world record for the deepest dive undertaken by a woman.

Gloria Hollister performed the dive in the Bathysphere, a large steel submersible in which Beebe and the Bathysphere's engineer, Otis Barton, undertook deep sea explorations throughout the early 1930s.

In 1936, having served as part of the oceanographic expeditions under Beebe's leadership, Gloria Hollister undertook her own expedition for the DTR, leading an exploring party 200 miles through the jungles of Guyana to the Kaieteur Plateau.

Gloria Hollister lectured extensively on behalf of the DTR about the team's expeditions and scientific findings.

Gloria Hollister was a member of the Society of Woman Geographers and later received their Outstanding Achievement Award.

In 1941, Gloria Hollister met Anthony Anable, a chemical and metallurgical engineer, and they married that year.

In December 1941, following the US's entry into World War II, Gloria Hollister resigned from the DTR and joined the American National Red Cross where she helped to found the nation's first blood donor center in Brooklyn, and later served as the assistant chief of the Speaker's Bureau of the American Red Cross in Washington, DC.

In 1952, having settled in Connecticut with her husband, Gloria Hollister became enchanted with the Mianus River Gorge and subsequently concerned about its preservation.

Gloria Hollister took more than 400 visitors through the Gorge that year, and support for its preservation grew.

Gloria Hollister served as the committee's secretary, chairman, and later chairman emeritus.

Gloria Hollister spent the last three years of her life in the Carolton Convalescent Hospital in Fairfield, Connecticut, and died of cardiac arrest on February 19,1988, at the age of 87.