The only issue lay in convincing the Blaschkas to undertake such a project and how to fund it. However, Harvard had recently procured several glass marine invertebrates made by German glass artists Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka and, upon seeing them, Professor Goodale realized that glass flowers would solve his problem as, being glass, they were both three-dimensional and would retain their color.

Hence they were hardly the ideal teaching tools. As such, Goodale wanted the best, but the only used method was showcasing pressed and carefully labeled specimens - a methodology that offered a twofold problem: being pressed, the specimens were two-dimensional and tended to lose their color. After 1879, Goodale served as the first director of Harvard's Botanical Museum, but filling it was a slight problem for, at that time, Harvard was the global center of botanical study. Charles Eliot Ware a twist of fate that would turn critical later. In 1878, he became a professor of botany and the Fisher professor of natural science, a chair formerly held by Asa Gray.Īt some point during his career as a Harvard/Radcliffe Professor, Goodale taught avid Botany student Mary Lee Ware - born to the Elizabeth Cabot Lee (from then on Elizabeth C. In 1872, he was appointed instructor in botany and University lecturer on vegetable physiology at Harvard, and advanced to assistant professor of the latter subject a year later. Goodale became professor of natural science and applied chemistry at Bowdoin. Harvard Professor George Lincoln Goodale in his laboratory.

The History of Veggies by Mary Lee