Harrison Williams Collection on Expeditions of William Beebe and George P. Putnam, 1922-1937 (MSS 800)

Harrison Williams (1873-1953) was a wealthy entrepreneur and businessman who founded the American Gas & Electric Co. in 1906, followed six years later by the creation of the Central States Electric Corp. holding company. His utilities fortune allowed him to support his interest in travel and natural history exploration, and he became a patron of the New York Zoological Society and the American Museum of Natural History, in addition to sitting on a number of important boards. Williams and his second wife, Mona, owned numerous properties around the world and the largest privately held yacht at the time, the Warrior.

William Beebe (1877-1962), who is the main correspondent with Williams in this collection, was an American naturalist, biologist, and explorer. Among many notable adventures and accomplishments, he is remembered for the expeditions he conducted on behalf of the New York Zoological Society's Department of Tropical Research, his deep Bathysphere dives in Bermuda, and his accessible writings on various scientific subjects. While his early expertise and expeditions for the Society focused on bird populations, Beebe gradually developed an interest in marine biology and oceanography. His first visit to the Galápagos Islands during the Williams Galápagos Expedition (1923) aboard the steam yacht Noma lasted about 20 days. During that time, he discovered and charted Darwin's Bay, a heretofore unknown crater-form bay on Tower (Genovesa) Island. Beebe's mission was to document (in notes, artwork, photography and film) the islands, and collect and preserve plant and animal specimens for the Society. Beebe's Arcturus Expedition (1925) brought him back to the area to investigate the Sargasso Sea region and re-visit the Galápagos. The expedition is significant for its ground-breaking observations of the Pacific Ocean currents off South American and the "El Niño" effect. From the late 1920s through the mid-1930s, Beebe established a research station in Bermuda where he continued to study marine animals, flora and currents. Off the coast of Nonesuch Island, he planned and executed underwater excursions in the spherical submarine vessel Bathysphere, along with its inventor, Otis Barton. This was the first time a biologist observed deep-sea animals in their native environment, and set several successive records for the deepest dive ever performed by a human, the deepest of which stood until it was broken by Barton 15 years later.

George P. Putnam (1887-1950), another prominent correspondent in this collection, was a well-known New York publisher, author and explorer. In 1926, Putnam and noted Arctic explorer Captain Bob Bartlett led an expedition to Northwest Greenland sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and supported by the patronage of Harrison Williams. Their ship, the Effie M. Morrissey, narrowly escaped disaster on the rocks near Northumberland Island, though the expedition was safely concluded and Putnam explored Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago the following year. In addition to his success in the publishing world, Putnam is remembered for being the husband of aviatrix Amelia Earhart.