This marriage also ended, and in 1933 Steadman married his third wife, Ethel Augusta Rosenberger, who survived her husband by a decade.

Steadman joined the USDA in 1915 as a pomological artist for the Bureau of Plant Industry, where he was one of a select group of botanical illustrators that included Deborah Griscom Passmore, Amanda Newton, Ellen Isham Schutt, and Elsie Lower.

Steadman') painted delicate, meticulously detailed watercolors of fruits and vegetables ranging from the common (citrus, strawberries, grapes, pears, plums, watermelons) to the then-exotic (cashew nuts, pawpaw, avocado, cherimoya).

He also produced a few pen-and-ink drawings, a handful of flower paintings (daffodil, iris, and tulip), a few historical scenes, some designs for postage stamps, and—as a favor to Amanda Newton—a portrait of her grandfather Isaac Newton, who had been the first U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture.

[1] Steadman also made and painted hollow wax fruit models showing the characteristics of different cultivars for the USDA's permanent records.