An Epistolary Biography

One: Ghost in the Forest

This slice of a chapter introduces Aton Forest, the estate at which Egler’s papers are housed and some of his research was carried out. At the same time, it subtly lays out the form of the rest of the book.

Two: Flight to Aton Forest

Frank Edwin Egler is introduced at the age of thirty-four, in career and personal crisis. Egler takes refuge in Aton Forest after a string of travails: resigning under fire from a faculty position, his wartime professional dislocations, and a physical injury. His intent is to isolate himself from society, take inspiration from his natural surroundings, and get his ideas on science and ecology into print.

Three: There Has Been No Insanity in My Family

This chapter is told through letters between Egler and Miss Jewel Atkins, a friend with whom he has a baffling relationship. Their lively letters reveal rich details in the personal and professional life of an academic scientist during the war and post-war years. Jewel’s analytical eye follows Frank’s early career; his relations with his scientific mentors, Henry C. Cowles, William S. Cooper, and George E. Nichols; his troubles with the draft; and his obligations toward his frail mother. There is also a gentle introduction to the "dynamic ecology" of Cowles and Frederic E. Clements, America’s first notable ecologists.

Four: A Commentary on Ecology

Egler’s professional crisis peaks with the 1951 publication of the article that gains him his greatest readership—and most notoriety. Egler appeals for the abandonment of Clements’s theories of an orderly succession to climax by attacking four mid-century textbooks on plant ecology. Anticipating later ideas by Thomas S. Kuhn on scientific paradigm shifts, Egler announces in vintage Eglerian prose: "For ‘those’ men not yet dead, this paper is not intended." Egler was speaking to the next generation of ecologists. He also knew he would make no friends with the article. The authors of two of the textbooks were trained by Cooper. Letters leading up to the publication of Egler’s "Commentary" suggest that jealousy over those two rivals for Cooper’s esteem may have been part of Egler’s motivation.

Five: What Do You Really Think of Me, Dr. Cooper?

In this chapter, Egler’s relationship with Cooper is traced through their letters. They are mostly from Egler to Cooper. They begin with Egler’s "wrong way" journey to Hawaii after completing his doctoral work at Yale. They end with pleasantly shared reminiscences of his first days as Cooper’s graduate student. Their letters discuss Clementsian theories, the need for ecology to adopt a philosophy of holism, the travails of a prodigy (Egler) suffering through a doctoral examining committee, and the academic politics that the nation’s war effort stirred up. Egler idolized Cooper, who was an unusually effective mentor. (Cooper’s cohort of Ph.D. students in the 1930s included Rex Daubenmire, Heinie Oosting, and Murray Buell, who all became Ecological Society of America presidents.) Egler strains his friendship by demanding that Cooper evaluate him as a scientist. Cooper is brutally honest in his evaluation of Egler the writer, Egler the ecologist, and Egler the man.

Six: The Rise and Fall of Frank E. Egler, Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History, and the Ruckus that Resulted at the Nature Conservancy

Aton Forest does not provide the professional base Egler needs. He is helped by environmentalist Richard Pough into a position with the American Museum of Natural History. It is non-paying, but for a while he enjoys being a Research Associate in its Conservation Division. Life treats scientists better when they can parade a prestigious affiliation. It lets Egler assess the state of European ecology at a major symposium, gets him invited to the famous 1955 conference on "Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth," and leads to the award of a Guggenheim Fellowship. However, Egler imperils the Museum position through his environmental outspokenness on herbicide spraying in right of ways, on which he had initiated a research program having the Museum’s imprimatur. He is forced to resign. The Museum’s Conservation Division is disbanded. Egler’s response to the situation can only be described as operatic. He prods early officers in the Nature Conservancy to remove its only paid officer, George Fell. That turned out to be a difficult task that eventually led to a change in management structure that may well have made the Nature Conservancy the most successful conservation organization ever. And it all had to do with Egler’s trying to vouchsafe $1000 in research funding.

Seven: What a Blast You Gave Me, Ray!

Egler’s relationship with F. Raymond Fosberg starts with their days together in Hawaii and continues through to the era of Silent Spring and beyond. Letters between the two are voluminous and are used throughout other chapters. In this chapter, they reveal the special nature of their friendship. Letters show stirrings of concern over global environmental problems, starting from Frank and Ray’s wartime experiences. That is followed by frustration over the lack of interest by ecologists in accepting applied research as legitimate. Egler is the ecologist, Fosberg, the botanist in their relationship, which mirrors tensions between ecologists and botanists in the post-World War Two era. Egler’s "Indigene Versus Alien in the Development of Arid Hawaiian Vegetation" paper, for which he collected data in the company of his friend, is more than a decade ahead of Charles Elton, who is generally considered to have pioneered the study of invasive species, currently a very hot topic. (Egler is only now receiving the recognition due him.)

Eight: Overwhelmed to the Point of Silence

The publication of Silent Spring changes ecology—and society—forever. Egler, through his championing of Rachel Carson and her book, contributes to this change. Carson’s development as an amateur ecologist is traced in parallel to that of the science. When she contacts Egler, he is about to retire (for real, this time) from ecology, but is reinvigorated through assisting her. His views on the conflict of interest created by the chemical industry funding agricultural scientists find their way into Carson’s writing. They lead to his being formally condemned by a professional society, but his voice is hardly stilled. Association with Silent Spring opens up prospects that had been closed to him. A consequence was aggravation of a split in ecology between ecosystem scientists, led by Eugene P. Odum, who got a boost from Silent Spring, and ecologists who were pursuing new ideas, championed by mathematician-turned-ecologist Robert H. MacArthur, on population and evolutionary ecology.

Nine: Was I Really Professional P’ison to You, Hal?

Hal Buechner was an undergraduate in Egler’s plant physiology class at Syracuse Forestry. He decided to pattern himself after Egler. Egler and he begin their correspondence at the outset of World War II. Hal’s education is disrupted by service in Europe as a bomber pilot. On his return, circumstances lead him into wildlife science, instead of plant ecology, although much of his M.S. thesis is clearly Egler-influenced. Buechner’s first professional post is at Pullman, Washington, where his colleagues include Daubenmire and Robert H. Whittaker. Frank and Hal’s letters follow Whittaker’s astounding early career, Hal’s triumphs and travails studying Uganda Kob, and Frank’s growing disillusionment with ecology and his career, especially in light of his pressing family obligations. Whittaker, who shares personality traits with Egler, goes on to accomplish what Egler set out to do but failed: displace Clementsian ecology with what is today’s science. Egler’s relationship with Buechner eventually disintegrates when Hal moves on to an administrative position with the Smithsonian Institution. By then, both were championing ecosystem studies, with Egler pushing his own ideas of a Total Ecology to its limit.

Ten: A Starved Animal Suddenly Finds and Devours Die Walküre

Egler was a teacher in need of students—or an apostle in need of disciples. He befriended and inspired a number of others besides Buechner. One was Mason E. Hale, Jr., a neighbor’s son who went on to study lichen ecology. Their letters discuss the research methods of John T. Curtis, founder of what was to become known as the "Wisconsin School" of plant ecology. He was Mason’s de facto Ph.D. advisor. Wisconsin ecologists introduced statistical methods using computers to the study of plant communities. They were beyond Egler’s ken. Mason, who would go on to world fame as a lichenologist with the Smithsonian, becomes disillusioned with ecology and with Egler. Another acolyte was Mason’s brother, Richard N. Hale, who follows Egler’s footsteps to Syracuse Forestry. He turns down an opportunity to go for a doctoral degree in ecology under Murray Buell. Instead, he spends his career managing pesticide sales in the Far East for Rohm and Haas. Another was Jack McCormick, a student under Buell, who survived Egler at the Museum. Others accepted Egler’s financial help without following up on his career advice.

Eleven: Reaching Climax in No Time Flat

Egler in the 1970s abandons formal research almost entirely. The science has passed him by, but he finds he can still contribute through book reviews and letters. He takes on the ethical and professional issues that beset the field after passage of the National Environmental Protection Act of 1970. He even joins the Ecological Society’s Committee on Ethics, albeit in a stubbornly Eglerian manner. Unable to get his vegetation science concepts into print thirty years after secluding himself in Aton Forest for that purpose, Egler could still get his ideas across in his book reviews in Ecology. One was of his own book, written under a pseudonym. The review was glowing. Although there are the usual Eglerian excesses leading to conflicts with editors, especially Whittaker, his reviews were welcomed for their honesty and lively prose. In one, he even managed to get back at Whittaker with the classic riposte that is the title of this chapter.

Twelve: Twilight at Aton Forest

Egler assesses his career and tries to find ways to keep his long-term research at Aton Forest going after his death. He is formally commended by the Ecological Society for his contributions, but neither he nor the commenders realized how ahead of his time Egler was—and how ill-served he was in his inability to persuade people to his ideas. Old friends pass out of his life, trusted acolytes disappear or disappoint. To his dying day, he never loses his interest in the real love of his life, fickle as it was for him—ecology.

Epilogue

Acknowledgments and Notes (You can find links to a selected number of original documents here.)

Name Index