She took her stepfather's surname. Wikipedia claims she was born in 1895. Mayflower ancestry of Elizabeth Ely Goodrich has her birthdate as June 5, 1895. A passenger list and an online article have June 5, 1895.
Assistant Curator of Ichthyology Francesca Lamonte, who worked at the Museum from 1920 to 1962, was Ernest Hemingway’s go-to fish authority and, according to a 1952 edition of The Long Island Press, a “general big-game whiz bang.”
LaMonte joined the Museum two years out of college, beginning her career translating scientific papers from French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian into English before being promoted to curator nine years later. During her time at the Museum, LaMonte became one of the world’s leading experts on big game fish and was a key player in the founding of the International Game Fish Association (IGFA), a group dedicated to game fish conservation and responsible sport-fishing. The IGFA, which had its first home here at the Museum, still exists today.
As both a curator and member of IGFA, LaMonte participated in a number of ichthyological expeditions. Her specialty was game fish like marlins and swordfish, species about which she published numerous scientific papers. LaMonte was also a prolific writer of game-fishing guides that were acclaimed best-sellers amongst the angling set,and penned vivid accounts of Museum expeditions. In a 1940 issue of Natural History, she described a trip to collect swordfish off of northern Chile:
Just three days through the air from the heat of a Miami June, and we are in the chill of a West Coast winter. Two fishing boats stand in the harbor of Tocopilla waiting for our expedition. All around them the water is alive with anchovies, and the neighboring boats are obscured by flocks of birds swooping down to feed on the small blue-and-silver fishes.
LaMonte’s work as a scientist and writer earned her admiration from some literary lions. Ernest Hemingway and Western novelist Zane Grey deeply respected LaMonte as an authority on fishing methods and records. When Hemingway bungled a bit of natural history in The Old Man and the Sea by having the protagonist immediately identify his marlin adversary as a male—a feat that would have been nearly impossible short of a dissection—LaMonte called him out on this bit of literary license.
LaMonte’s name has been immortalized in a genus of South American armored catfishes—Lamontichthys—and her life’s work has proven invaluable to modern conservation efforts to protect saltwater species.
(https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/news-posts/women-in-museum-history-francesca-lamonte)
Recently the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum announced the opening of a collection of materials kept by Francesca LaMonte, a noted ichthyologist who helped found The International Game Fish Association (IGFA), worked as Assistant Curator at the American Museum of Natural History from 1920 to 1962, and was informally referred to as a “fish authority” for writer Ernest Hemingway.
The Francesca LaMonte Personal Papers collection joins over twenty other collections at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library that contain some materials related to Ernest Hemingway’s work and life. For more information about how these collections came to the Library, check out their blog post.
This small collection consists of one file retained by LaMonte regarding an article by Ernest Hemingway titled “Cuban Fishing.” LaMonte solicited the article for a book on sport fishing that she was co-editing with Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald, published as Game Fish of the World in 1949. The papers include a typed manuscript (known as a “typescript”) for “Cuban Fishing” with handwritten edits by Hemingway, correspondence between LaMonte and Hemingway, two photographs of Havana, and the original file folder this material was housed in.
LaMonte spent her career performing extraordinary services for fishing as a scientist, author and editor, and founding member of The International Game Fish Association. Without LaMonte’s cutting-edge marine research and literary contributions, modern efforts to salvage habitat and preserve saltwater species would be set back untold years.
During her career as Associate Curator of Fishes at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), LaMonte helped produce a stream of definitive books on the world’s fresh and saltwater species: co-editor of Field Book of Fresh Water Fishes of North America in 1938; author of North American Game Fishes in 1945; co-editor of Game Fishes of the World in 1949; co-editor of the Fisherman’s Encyclopedia in 1950; author of Marine Game Fishes of the World in 1952 and Giant Fishes of the Ocean in 1966. At the same time LaMonte planned and supervised installation of many of AMNH’s massive exhibits.
She also kept up an amazing number of professional affiliations with organizations such as the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and the Society of Systematic Zoology. In 1930, LaMonte was a U.S. Representative to the XI International Zoological Congress in Padua, Italy.
Francesca Lamonte examining a fish Lamonte was a woman whose enthusiasm for fish reached around the world. She spoke several languages and traveled extensively on expeditions with the AMNH. Among LaMonte’s most important achievement was the instrumental role she played in founding The International Game Fish Association in 1939. She was the IGFA’s first secretary and served in that role for 39 years, was appointed to the first executive committee, and provided invaluable service as editor for all of the IGFA’s early publications.
LaMonte was inducted into the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame in 1998. Without LaMonte’s cutting edge research and contributions to the literature of marine science, modern efforts to salvage habitat and preserve species would be set back untold years.