author
Charles Hugh Stevenson
1869–1943
Best known for lively, informative writing about fisheries and marine products, this American author brought unusual subjects like pearls, whalebone, and food preservation to a wide audience. His work blends practical knowledge with the curiosity of a natural historian.
1 Audiobook
The Book of the Pearl The history, art, science, and industry of the queen of gems
by George Frederick Kunz, Charles Hugh Stevenson
About the author
Born in Snow Hill, Maryland, in 1869, Charles Hugh Stevenson built a career that crossed science, public service, law, and writing. Records associated with his work show that he wrote extensively on fisheries and aquatic products, and many of his books and reports focused on the uses, trade, and history of materials drawn from the sea.
Stevenson is especially remembered for works such as The Book of the Pearl, Whalebone, and Aquatic Products in Arts and Industries. He also contributed writing connected with the U.S. Fish Commission, which helps explain the practical, research-based tone of much of his nonfiction.
He died in Detroit in 1943. Today, his books remain interesting not only as sources of information, but also as snapshots of how Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries understood commerce, nature, and the resources of the ocean.