Alice Eastwood, a talk by Rebekah Kim - California Academy of Sciences

Alice Eastwood was the Academy's curator of Botany from 1893 until 1949, when she retired at 90. Eastwood is a beloved and cherished Academy figure best known for her heroic efforts in saving collections during the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. See how a high school graduate from Colorado became a world-renowned botanist with her intellect, curiosity, and charming personality.

In her career, she grew the Botany collection to 350,000 specimens and was involved in over 300 scientific publications. In her personal life, she had friends from around the globe. Her influences expanded beyond the Academy, from the plants in Golden Gate Park to the creation of the San Francisco Botanical Garden, the San Francisco Garden Club, and many more plant-loving groups.

Come and hear about Alice, the botanist, dear friend to many, intrepid explorer, clever seamstress, investor, librarian, and so much more.
Rebekah Kim is the Head Librarian at the California Academy of Sciences for the past 8 years. As the Head Librarian she oversees the Academy's library and archives and often talks about the Academy's history. Previously she has worked in other Bay Area institutions such as Dolby Laboratories, Google, the Computer History Museum, the GLBT Historical Society and The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. In these roles, she helped capture Google’s early history, assisted the production team for the movie “Milk” (2008, directed by Gus Van Sant) and processed physical and digital archival materials from the dawn of the computing age.