In 1872, he was appointed instructor in botany and University lecturer on vegetable physiology at Harvard,[2] and advanced to assistant professor of the latter subject a year later.

The former took some time - and an advance payment of 200 marks[5] - to accomplish, but eventually the famed glass artists agreed to send test-models to the U.S. and, although damaged in customs,[6] the fragments convinced Goodale that Blaschka glass art was a more than worthy educational investment.

But investments require fund, and to cover such an expensive enterprise Goodale approached his former student Mary Lee Ware and her mother with his idea.

Being independently wealthy and (already) liberal benefactors of Harvard's botanical department,[7] Mary convinced her mother to agree to underwrite the consignment of the uncannily lifelike models they both were enchanted by.

[11][12] He also had a wife and son, the latter of whom, Francis Goodale, is known to have attended Mary Lee Ware's funeral on January 12 at King's Chapel.

He was succeeded by Professor Oakes Ames,[14][15] who takes up Goodale's work at the suggestion of Prof. Henshaw and is eventually made the second director of Harvard's Botanical Museum by President Lowell,[16] becoming an additional contact of Mary Lee Ware regarding the as yet unfinished Glass Flowers enterprise.