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The Sternberg Fossil Hunters: A Dinosaur Dynasty by Katherine Rogers was originally published in 1999, and has recently become available in paperback. This biography of fossil hunter Charles Sternberg and his three fossil hunting sons (and grandson), is a very readable book that I recommend for anyone interested in learning more about the lives of famous paleontologists. It is an especially good book for budding young paleontologists.
The Sternberg family story begins with patriarch Levi Sternberg, a Lutheran minister (he later changed to being a Presbyterian minister). Levi moved the family from their home in New York to Iowa to teach at Iowa Lutheran College during the western expansion of the US in the late 1800's. When George Sternberg, an Army surgeon, was transferred to Fort Harker, Kansas, he encouraged his parents to move his younger siblings to Kansas. The move to Kansas exposed young Charles to more and different fossils than he had been exposed to in New York. He was later admitted as a special student to the newly established Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University) in Manhattan, Kansas. Charles had already sent some fossils to the American Museum of Natural History; while in college, Charles learned that he could make a living collecting fossils for the two dominant figures in American paleontology at that time, Othniel Charles Marsh of Yale University and Edward Drinker Cope of Philadelphia. After being excluded from a fossil hunting trip with Marsh, Sternberg went to work for Cope, and formed a close, personal relationship with Cope and his wife. Seeing the loving relationship between the Copes encouraged Charles Sternberg to locate a young woman from Kansas whom he had admired while they were in school together, Anna Reynolds. Charles and Anna married and had five children, sons Charles Reynolds (who died as an infant), George Fryer, Charles Mortram, Levi, and only daughter Maud. Charles's and Anna's surviving sons followed him into the profession of fossil hunting. Daughter Maud died of unknown causes in 1911 at age twenty, leaving Charles devastated. Maud had never joined her father and brothers during their fossil hunting trips, but Charles had entertained his daughter with stories of extinct creatures. Charles consoled himself over Maud's death by writing a small book entitled The Story of the Past.
The copyright of the article Book Review: The Sternberg Fossil Hunters in Paleontology is owned by Beverly Eschberger. Permission to republish Book Review: The Sternberg Fossil Hunters in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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