B uz^ f,HOS BAY '^o. % '^S; >> ^'^RBOR TOf .^ MBL BEACH 2 4 1 ^^. MARINE BKX-OGICAL LABORATORY SWOPE CENTER 'owsserr TRAFFIC LIGHT EEL [POND. #" ^6- v^\§v: Jo -10 WCX)DS HOLE QUISSETT CAMPUS i? ^v / c? ..<^ ^4 50 >' NOBSKA LIGHTHOUSE 1. Marine Biological Laboratory Swope Center 2. NMF Aquarium 3. National Marine Fisheries 4. MBLLoeb 5. MBL Whitman 6. MBLLillie 7. WHOI Bigelow S. WHOI Iselin 9. WHOI Smith 10. WHOI Redfield M\ V4 ^/i MILE Tftc Marine Bio(o^kal Laboratory Directors 1888-1908 CHARLES OTIS WHITMAN 1909-1925 FRANK R. LILLIE 1926-1937 MERKEL H. JACOBS 1938-1949 CHARLES PACKARD 1950-1965 PHILIP B. ARMSTRONG 1966-1969 H. BURR STEINBACH 1970-1975 JAMES EBERT 1976 KEITH PORTER 1977 JAMES EBERT 1978-1986 PAUL GROSS 1987 RICHARD WHITTAKER (Acting Director) 1988 HARLYN O. HALVORSON 100 Years Expiorin^ Life 1888-1988 The Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole x^^V^* """^cj^^^^ 100 Tears ETCpUnin^ Lifc^ 1888-1988 The Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole ft88^l9S^ Jane Maienschein Department of Philosophy Arizona State University Selection and arrangement of photographs by Ruth Davis Archivist, Marine Biological Laboratory ^( LIB: qG\C.4^ .-NC^' Jones and Bartlett Publishers BOSTON Editorial, Sales, and Customer Service Offices Jones and Bartlett Publishers 20 Park Plaza Boston, MA 02116 Copyright © 1989 by Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the United States of America 10 987654321 Librfiry of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dala Maienschein, Jane. 100 years exploring life, 1888-1988 : the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole/ Jane Maienschein with selection and arrangement of photographs by Ruth Davis, p. cm. Bibliography: p. ISBN 0-86720-120-7 1. Marine biological laboratory (Woods Hole, Mass. I — History. I. Title. QH91.M237 1989 88-8529 574'.072074492-dcl9 CIP Printing of text by Lancaster Press, Inc., Lancaster, PA. Contents Foreword vii Preface xiii Arriving in Woods Hole 1 Friday Evening Lectures 3 Louis Agassiz 6 The Anderson School at Penikese 9 Summers in Woods Hole 11 The Origin of the Marine Biological Laboratory 19 Living Here 27 Housing 29 Whaling and Fishing 31 Commercial Resources 33 The Science School 39 Food 40 Weather 45 Buildings and Budgets 49 Buildings Old and New 51 Funding and Control 64 The Library and Publications 73 The Library 75 Publications 82 Rare Books Room and Archives 84 The People 87 Students 89 Administrators 92 Edwin Grant Conklin and Charles Otis Whitman 93 The Tradition of Research 96 Leaders 98 MBL Personalities 99 Cooperative Administration in a Community 101 vi i^ 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 Jobs and Fellowships 102 Minorities at the MBL 104 MBL StaiT and Children 112 6 Doing Science 117 Collaboration 120 Early Days of Marine Biology 122 Techniques and Equipment 124 Problems 126 Organisms 131 Collecting Organisms 134 7 Out of the Lab 151 Boating Trips and Beach Parties 153 Marriages 157 The Beach 157 Drama 159 Music 160 The MBL Club 162 Singing 164 Walking, Biking, and Running 166 Fourth of July, Diving, and Sports 167 Gardening 169 Sailing 170 Meals, Movies, and Diversions 170 8 Friends and Relatives 175 Thanks for the Memories 185 Sources and Acknowledgements 185 Epilogue 189 The Marine Biological Laboratory Directors Front Endpaper Nobel Laureates AMliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory Rear Endpaper Foreword Imagine a warm summer night in mid-August. You are standing on a dock at midnight in the light of a full moon, peering down into the dark water below. The surface of the water ripples as if it were alive. As your eyes grow accustomed to the moonlit darkness, you realize that the water is alive. You are watching the mating ritual of thousands of writhing, swirling polychete worms as they seek out their mates under the influence of the full moon's light. A timeless event unfolds before you, connecting you back to primeval oceans, where ancient progenitors of these polychetes repeated a similar ritual, before any human eyes were there to see. Before you is an expression of life at its most fundamental, its most dynamic, its most breathtaking. Like thousands of students of marine embryology who stood on this dock before you, you wall always remember this scene and the institution that led you to it: the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In 1988 the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) celebrated its centen- nial. As it enters its second century, the MBL not only looks back to a great past, but forward to a great future as the United States' premier biological research institute. It is therefore fitting that its unique story be told at this time. In this well-researched, sometimes humorous, always human 'biog- raphy" of this eclectic institution, historian of science Jane Maienschein has caught a glimpse of what it is that has made the MBL so special to all who have spent any time there. Essayist Lewis Thomas has described the MBL as a "National Biological Laboratory, " an institution that brings together each summer a collection of biologists from across the United States and abroad. From its founding in 1888 onward, the MBL has indeed served as a gathering spot for biologists who come to Woods Hole not only to work with their favorite marine organisms, but also to converse with each other and exchange ideas in a way that seldom happens in the more limited confines of university biology departments. Almost from the beginning, the MBL attracted international as well as American investigators, becoming increasingly a "World Biological Labora- tory" since the turn of the century. Unlike its European counterparts, where the focus has always been almost exclusively on research, often by only the most established senior investigators, the MBL has always had a diversity of programs and personnel. There is, of course, a major emphasis on re- search. In addition, however, the MBL has always been equally devoted to viii M\ 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 teaching, running a number of summer courses for graduate students or others seeking to learn about a field or refresh that knowledge. Nobel laureates and high school teachers have been involved in the same MBL course during a given summer. Through its research and its courses, the MBL has served as a nerve center for the development and propagation of biological knowledge in the twentieth century. For this distinction it owes a debt to the great European biological stations established a generation earlier: Roscoff and the Stazione Zoologica in Naples (1872), Villefranche-sur-mer, and Plymouth, England (1888), among others. It also has roots in two earlier American precedents: the Annisquam Laboratory of the Woman's Education Association of the Boston Society of Naturalists (established 1879), and Louis Agassiz's Anderson School of Natural History on Penikese Island (established 1872). Like every great centenarian, the MBL has drawn upon this heritage to create its own unique personality. The biographical history of that personality is the subject of Professor Maienschein's volume. While everyone who has spent any time at the MBL agrees it is unique, it is not so easy to capture and characterize that uniqueness for others. Some have emphasized the intellectual atmosphere, the constant interest and attention to science, and the thirty-five or more Nobel laureates who have at one time or another been directly associated with the institution. Others have emphasized the MBL's pla3^1 and relaxing aspect, referring to it as the "summer camp for biologists." Still others have emphasized its social and sociological side, the fact that the MBL has nurtured the creative development of countless biologists in this country and abroad over the century, and that many people's affiliations later in life came from contacts they made with colleagues at the MBL as students or young investigators. (Many biologists even met their spouses at the MBL, either in courses or through research work.) But, of course, none of these qualities by itself fully captures the MBL's uniqueness, since the MBL is, in a sense, a combination of all of them. It is a place where lots of science gets done — often veiy good science. In the early 1900s, for example, T. H. Morgan brought his fi'uit flies from New York to Woods Hole every summer just because the atmosphere for doing research and for exchanging ideas was so exciting. More recently, neurobiologists from NIH, Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Cali- fornia have used marine invertebrates, such as slugs, to study the neuro- logical basis of behavior. The MBL is, indeed, a center for much of what is at the cutting edge of biological research today. At the same time, it is very much a place where people combine play and work, where discussions about repeated sequences of DNA, or neuroti'ansmitter mechanisms, are punctuated by swimming, tennis, or boating. Yet tlic conversations are always resumed, often with ft-esh insights brought about by periods of FOREWORD /A ix relaxation and play. It is also a place where careers are made, and where new associations, professional and personal, are formed. Many collabora- tions have resulted from joint research work begun, or largely carried out, at the MBL. The uniqueness of the MBL lies in its combination of so many vital qualities. I recently discussed the subject of the MBL's uniqueness with my colleague at Washington University, Viktor Hamburger, student of Nobel laureate Hans Spemann in the 1920s and himself an eminent embryologist, who spent a number of years as instructor, and later director, of the embryology course at the MBL (1936-46). I asked Professor Hamburger what he thought were the unique features of the institution. He replied that, for him, the uniqueness lies in the pastoral setting that allows people to have ongoing conversations wdth colleagues undistracted by the constant inter- ruptions of daily life in the university. In addition, Hamburger noted, the MBL provides scientists the opportunity to observe each other's experi- ments first-hand, and to discuss diflferent interpretations of data on the spot. The MBL provides an opportunity for doing science and for thinking in a relaxing atmosphere that fosters creativity. To Hamburger, this is the secret of the MBL's uniqueness — that it spawns creativity. My own experience with the MBL dates back some twenty years when, as a graduate student in history of science, I discovered one of the Labo- ratory's most unique features: its magnificent library. Even though I was a student at Harvard, which has one of the most complete libraries in the world, I still found the MBL Library to be a special treat. Not only were the library's journal holdings more complete in many cases than Harvard's, but they were much easier to use. All numbers of every journal are housed under one roof and are arranged alphabetically. The library is open twenty- four hours a day, seven days a week, and no one checks you in and out or stamps the books you borrow; the library runs on the honor system and works surprisingly well. Few books are lost, stolen, or misplaced. Another very special feature of the MBL Library is its reprint collection: 300,000 individual reprints, arranged by author and covering all aspects of biology between roughly 1880 and 1966. For a historian, this is a goldmine of information. After spending my first summer using the library full-time, I discov- ered—in a way close to my own heart — one of the MBL Library's most treasured features. Here was a complete set of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, or the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, dating back to volume 1, in 1665, sitting on the shelves for browsing. (Some of the older, more valuable and fragile items have now been removed to the newly-renovated Rare Books Room and Archives.) These same journals had been perused in the past by Lillie, Morgan, Conklin, Harrison and other greats in early twentieth-century biology. iC^ 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 In the two decades since, I have never failed to feel the excitement of this library each day— as much, perhaps, as the embryologist still feels each time he or she looks at a developing ctenophore or sea urchin embryo. I am reminded of the tribute Stephen Jay Gould paid to the MBL Library in his book. Ontogeny and Phylogeny, written partly in Woods Hole over a decade ago: "Where else could an idios3ncratic worker like me find a library open all the time, free from the rules and bureaucracy that stifle scholarship and 'protect' books only by guarding them from use. It is an anomaly in a suspicious and anonymous age. " It is difficult to capture these many and varied facets of the MBL's personality in one book, especially one aimed at a general audience of nonspecialists. If you have spent one or more summers at the MBL, you know some of the magic that it holds. But to someone who only knows of the MBL, or is just learning about it, the qualities that make it so special to its friends may seem elusive, almost mystical. It is a testament of Jane Maienschein's knowledge of the MBL and to her historical and verbal skills that she has captured much of the magic of the institution in a very down-to-earth way. She has truly written a biography of the laboratory. Professor Maienschein has chosen to write not so much of the Nobel laureates or of the detailed scientific accomplishments that have made the MBL's first century so eminent, but of the people — the everyday people, scientists and nonscientists alike— who have made up the life of the Laboratory and created its very special personality. This is the story of an institution written in highly personal terms. The Nobel laureates are there, as they should be. So, too, are the directors, trustees and others who have given special parts of their lives to guiding and managing the institution. But it is the working scientists and support staff— the collecting crews, the technicians, even the doyens of the Mess Hall — whose story Professor Maienschein paints with such clarity and humor. The work-a-day activities of people from every facet of MBL life occupy the main focus of Professor Maienschein's attentions. It is, after all, the activity of everyday people that makes up the real spirit of any institution. That spirit existed from the beginning at the MBL, before there were Nobel prizes or year-round administrative staff. In many ways, it would have been easier to write a book that traced only the illustrious individuals who figured prominently in the MBL during its first century. The more difficult task, which Professor Maienschein has carried out so well, is to portray that history in terms of on-going, everyday activities. Although Jane Maienschein has served as principal author, in a very real sense this book is a collaborative effort. Some of the collaborators are long deceased, but their voices are heard in the quotations from archival sources, both published and unpublished, that Professor Maienschein has included. Others of the collaborators are still very much with us, and they FOREWORD ^ xi have collaborated by providing interviews and personal recollections that always add so much to historical accounts. Certain collaborators have added their own very special touches. In particular, MBL archivist Ruth Davis, along with Robert and Millie Huettner, has been invaluable in selecting the photographs to illustrate the volume. This history of the MBL, therefore, is the work of a team of researchers, and presents the best of their collective effort. As a result of this collaborative approach. Professor Maienschein's book is unique in its own right. It is intended as a living testament to an institution with a special mission and a special history. It is not a sequel to or replacement of F. R. Lillie's book. The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1944), which has been reprinted in a special edition for the MBL centennial by Lancaster Press. Nor is Professor Maienschein's book an official centennial eulogy, an essay in self-aggrandizement of the sort that often accompanies the celebration of institutional anniversaries. Rather, it is what any good biography should be: a loving but frank portrayal of a special friend. Like all celebrities, the MBL has had its ups and downs. The ups have far outnumbered the downs, but the downs have been there nonetheless: the perennial financial problems, disagreements within the corporation about its own mission, and even controversial proposals to have the MBL managed by other institutions. But the MBL has managed to come through these bad times more or less unscathed, retaining, as Jane Maienschein shows so well, its essential magic. This book is aimed at the specialist and the nonspecialist alike. It is written so as not to presuppose any particular background, or any famil- iarity with biology or the MBL itself. As a personal history, it should be accessible not only to biologists who know the MBL first-hand, but also to the curious reader, the Cape Cod visitor, or the foreign dignitary who wants to know something about American scientific research institutions. It may, therefore, disappoint some research biologists, who might wish that there were more detailed descriptions of the scientific work of the past or present at the MBL. It may also disappoint some staunch MBL regulars, who would like to see more details of local history and institutional lore. It may even disappoint that special breed of modern historian of science, the institu- tional historian, who prizes quantitative data — graphs and tables of num- bers of investigators per summer, numbers of dollars spent, square footage of lab space utilized. All that would be largely irrelevant, however. It would not reveal nearly so well as does Professor Maienschein's more personal account what it is that really makes up the spirit of the MBL. No book can be all things to all people. One must take this portrait of the MBL on its own terms. xii M^ 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 A special feature of Professor Maienschein's book is the many and varied illustrations that accompany it. This book is really more of an- "illustrated biography" than a standard history. Included are many unusual photographs and prints taken largely from the MBL Archives and selected with great care by archivist Ruth Davis. In line with Professor Maienschein's overall approach, most of the photographs are candid, rather than posed, portraits. The illustrations attempt to capture the liveliness, the spirit of intense work, humor, play, and family that make up so much of life in the MBL community. Selected from all periods of the MBL's history, the illustrations attempt to show, in contemporary terms, the kind of scientific work, physical atmosphere, and personal relationships that existed in 1888, 1910, 1940, 1980. If a picture is worth a thousand words. Professor Maienschein has lengthened her text considerably by including this array of fascinating and informative illustrations. In conclusion, this institutional biography is written from the perspec- tive that could only have been written by a professional historian who also has an extended and loving relationship with the MBL. It is as fitting a way as I can imagine both to look back over the MBL's distinguished past and to glance forward to its equally exciting and promising future. Fall 1988 Garland E. Allen Prefi ace The Marine Biological Laboratory began in 1888. As first director Chcirles Otis Whitman said, it was a mere germ, only barely fertilized. The first year brought a simple cellular form with only seventeen "ids in its protoplasmic body— two instructors, eight students, and seven investigators (all begin- ners). The two instructors could be likened, with no great stretch of the imagination, to two polar corpuscles, signifying little more than that the germ was a fertile one, and prepared to begin its preordained course of development." This fertile germ then underwent various cleavages and began to assume a multicellular shape. With growth, it advanced to the tadpole stage. It encountered troubles along the way, just as any growing individual does. Fortunately, these troubles have never proved fatal. Whitman saw the MBL as a living being. It still is today— a being made up of all the cellular individucils who visit and work there. The life of the organism is part of the life of the individual members and visitors. This book is about the MBL's first one hundred years of life. This work represents a biography of the MBL, which has had a life very like any other individual, with its cycles of adolescence and growth and maturity and maybe even metamorphic stages as well. Indeed, this is really an autobiography, a reflective sketch of a full and rich life told through recollections and reflections recorded wdthin the archives and the people of the MBL. This is only one of the many autobiographical stories that could be told; other times and other efforts will bring additional perspectives. If anyone feels that something has been left out, he or she is invited to write down those stories and facts and deposit them in the MBL Archives. This story reflects what lies in the current public and archival record. As an autobiography, this is not the sort of study that provides a litany of vital statistics and details from birth to death in precise, chronological order with everything in its proper place. Rather, this is an effort to present the spirit of the MBL's life, that spirit of cooperation and cross-fertilization of ideas that makes science a living process. This interactive life is some- times pervaded by a certain untidiness and even unreality. Recorded mem- ory occasionally may bring seemingly insignificant details into sharp focus or forget others. Sometimes the past comes into clearer focus than the present. So be it. The life recounted here is an important one, and the quirks of the storytelling mirror are quirks in the life itself and in its records. What, exacUy, is the MBL? Biologist-writer Lewis Thomas has called it a virtual National Biological Laboratory for the United States because so xiv A\ 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 much of import has been accomplished here, by so many leading biologists from all over the country. Yet the MBL is not officially that. It is not funded by the government, nor does it have direct governmental connections. It is an independent research and teaching laboratory, owned and governed by its scientists, and it has been so since the early years. The MBL welcomes biologists from all over the country and from many foreign countries; one recent year brought representatives from over 325 American and nearly 75 foreign institutions. This rich diversity of scientists clearly goes beyond any self-conscious sense of unique national identity or externally imposed purpose. Rather, the MBL is a group of first-rate individual scientists, working in concert with their own goals. These goals converge on producing the best biological research possible, so that the underlying purpose is one of advancing science. The MBL is a haven for science and as such serves as a special resource, nationally and internationally. It is more a valuable treasure than a national laboratory in the most familiar and limited sense. Yet what, exactly, is the Marine Biological Laboratory, and where did it come from? It is mostly Marine. The majority of researchers still use marine organisms. Some of these are not strictly local; a few could easily be flown back to Idaho or Kansas and need not be studied on the spot; and a small number of workers do not really even work with marine organisms. The MBL has embraced a wider variety of life forms as the evolution of biological work has carried researchers elsewhere. Yet the bulk of work at the MBL remains marine and directed at marine-based research problems concern- ing development, heredity, physiology, and evolution. The work is also largely Biological, though not exclusively. Chemistry and physics creep in as they relate to biological questions. Historians have begun to join the group of researchers, carrying out their own historical research projects using the unique collection of resources available. After the recent inaugural history course in connection with the MBL's centen- nial, several of the students cancelled their vacation plans in order to stay and do research in this surprisingly outstanding library. Occasional artists arrive, and journalists, and sociologists, to carry out their own brand of research, not in biology but about biology and biologists. Yet Biology remains the central mission. As a Laboratory, the place also has evolved to embrace a wider range of work centered on biological research. Some of the researchers at the MBL actually use the librciry as their laboratory, a few even making the mistake of never going outside to explore the variety of life there. Some take the institution as their lab, looking over the shoulders of scientists to investigate the process of doing science. But most still come to the MBL to carry out their laboratory work in biology, experimenting on marine organ- isms as they have for a full centuiy. In recent decades the MBL has become PREFACE A XV a year-round laboratory as well, with some outstanding researchers choos- ing to pursue their life's work here. One recent wintry day, someone put warm woolen hats on artist Elaine Pear Cohen's fine sculpture of scientists talking, which represents the MBL spirit and resides at a major corner in town. It evidently appeared that the scientists needed additional warming resources to continue through winter. At first the MBL was just a summer operation. It began in 1888 as part of America's response to the general move toward research at the seashore. Little was known of marine life before 1800, but that began to change from two directions. The laying of transoceanic telegraph cable brought many questions about marine life. Common opinion had held that the pressure of water would prevent any life from existing at very great depths in the seas. People expected to find neat layers of different sorts of living beings, below which would lie a layer of skeletons from those human bodies lost and buried at sea, and below that perhaps a layer of gold coins, and anchors, and other items lost overboard. Yet when the deep sea cables broke and were hauled up for repair, they had numerous living organisms securely at- tached. Life forms must be able to live down there after all, and the drive quickly developed to explore those depths and to discover those living organisms "where no man had gone before." Perhaps the sea even held very simple and primitive organisms that would help to illuminate the perfection of nature's design, thought researchers in the middle of the nineteenth century, before Darwin. In the late nineteenth century, after Darvvdn had put forth his evolution theory and after German biologist Ernst Haeckel had convinced so many people that the right way to pursue biological science was to trace the evolutionary relationships of organisms, biologists moved to the seashore. Haeckel believed that all of life arose from very simple primitive organisms resembling single cells. The question was, which organisms appeared first and which later, and through what series of changes? The key, Haeckel convinced a number of researchers, lay in marine organisms. Sea life, he believed, was more primitive and therefore more basic in evolutionary history. Studying the similarities and differences, especially of early embry- onic development of a range of marine organisms, became the accepted practice in biology. Besides, knowing the phylogenetic history, as it was called, would reveal the ancestors of the vertebrates and of man. This, after all, is something we care about. So to the seashore they went. Those few hardy pioneers therefore moved to the seashore to inves figate the structure and function of the various peculiar aquatic species. They asked: what lived in the water, and how did those forms relate to terrestrial organisms? What could marine life reveal about the marvelous diversity and distribution of life? The European approach to the sea cen- tered on facilitating research into just such questions. In contrast to the XVI £, 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 dominant research-oriented Naples Zoological Station in Italy and other European labs, the Americans sought to establish a teaching as well as a research laboratory, a place where landlocked and uninitiated students could experience scientific investigation with living organisms at the sea- shore. As the founders wed their two goals together the MBL emerged. That MBL has trained a hundred years of biologists, directly and indirectly. Each summer hundreds of students come from all over to take courses taught by teams of hundreds of internationally known lecturers (yes, there really are at least as many lecturers as students). One-time students often go on to become lecturers in their turn, or they help to start and sustain other marine laboratories and schools elsewhere, many of which have carried on some of the MBL tradition. So the MBL is just that: the Marine Biological Laboratory, with a life of its own and an identity that defies neat and tidy circumscription. It is a place where people learn to love being part of the process of doing science, and where the science benefits too. And it is an exemplar for community research in biology, a hotbed of intense, dedicated biological research. It is a place where one can look out into an audience gathered for a lecture and see two new MacArthur Fellows sitting next to each other, where National Academy of Sciences members abound, where there are several NIH Merit researchers together, where department heads and Nobel Prize winners congregate. More importantly, it is a place where those recognized by such external distinctions sit and discuss the same lectures and the same re- search data or course outlines as young assistant professors, eager graduate and undergraduate students, enthusiastic high school students, and some- times even the children. For this is a place to learn the sharing and cooperation that makes cross-fertilization of ideas possible, to ignore or overcome the boundaries existing elsewhere in the research world. It is a place to return to and to work for and to care for. This book is a story of tlie MBL, told through the words and images of its people, both past and present. J.M. NOTES* Charles Otis Whitman on the beginning of the MBL, "Address to the MBL Corporation, " August 11, 1903, Whitman Collection. Lewis Thomas on the MBL as a national laboratory, The Lives of a Cell (New York: Viking Press, 1974), pp. 58-63." On early marine work, see the symposium papers by Keith Benson, Ralph Dexter, Jane Maionschein, and Robert Terwilliger, "The History of Marine •Materials arc in tho MBL Ai-chivos unless otherwise rioted. Laboratories and Marine Research," American Zo- ologist (1988) 28: 1-34. On the Naples Zoological Station, see Charles Knfoid, The Biological Stations of Europe (Washington, D. C: Government Printing Office, 1910), pp. 7-34. Also more recent articles by Christiano Gioeben, such as "Anton Dohrn-the Statesman of Dai-win- ism," Biological Bulletin special historical edition (June 1985), 168 Suppl.: 4-25. 1 Arriving in Woods Ho(e The Yalden sundial, given in 1934 by Charles R. Crane. MBL Archives. The Scientists, sculpture by Elaine Pear Cohen, at the corner of School and Water streets. Photograph by Sally Bruckner, courtesy of Elaine Pear Cohen, MBL Archives. James P. McGinnis injecting a lobster, 195fi. MBL Archives. 1 I ARRIVING IN WOODS HOLE ^ RiDAY NIGHT in the summer, the cars roll into Woods Hole. Eager families arrive for their ferry reservations to Martha's Vineyard. They have waited a long time for this week to come, and they arrive early in anticipation. Steamship Authority officials direct their cars into line. But hours remain before the scheduled departure. The family locks the car and wanders the streets of Woods Hole, this little piece of land at the bottom of Cape Cod. The main street takes them past restaurants, specializing in seafood of course, then past the grocery store. But what are the red brick buildings? Is there some business or factory here, they ask? Only the business of science. As they move down the street, they may see a sundial on a little plaza near the water. An MBL benefactor, plumbing magnate Charles R. Crane, gave the Yalden sundial, which was designed to keep extremely accurate time — reportedly to within one-half minute throughout the day— for Woods Hole's particular location. A lobster provides the sundial with its local Cape Cod flavor and a scientific twist. There is a small hole in the lobster, it is said, because the stone engraver obtained his specimen from the MBL Supply Department rather than from a local fisherman. Reportedly Harvard biolo- gist George Howard Parker initially told the engraver that the claws were not lifelike enough. He recommended a visit to the supply department. The chosen model had a little hole in the back of the carapace, where it had been injected. So does the sundial's lobster. Fridc^ Evening Lectures Very few of those waiting for the ferry make the turn past the lobster down MBL Street, to the brick and wooden buildings and to the Eel Pond. Those few who do so on a Friday night will see people converging from all directions on the main lecture room of the MBL, in the Lillie Building. Individuals trickle in from the library floors above, some with books in hand. Groups of people wander over from the laboratories across the street or down the hall, often chattering away about what is working or not 4 M^ 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 Crane Building from the old Cayadetta dock, August, 1923. Norman W. Edmund Collection, MfiL Aichives. 1 I ARRIVING IN WOODS HOLE /A. Lillie Auditorium during the 1940s, with director Charles Packard sitting in the center background- MBL Archives. Charles Otis Whitman, first director of the MBL and architect of its form of governance of by, and for the scientists. MBL Archives. M\ 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 working in the lab. Some people drive in from their cottages, often trans- porting those whose age has made them feel no longer comfortable walking the familiar distance at night. Bicycles roll up carrying young researchers, students, and maybe even a few teenagers. Assorted people sail or row in after a day on the water. Maybe a couple will even be returning by ferry from a day on one of the islands. These people are all gathering, as the MBL community has gathered for one hundred years, to hear the week's Friday evening lecture. Some nights the subject may be so technical that a few tired listeners doze olT after their long day in the lab. At other times a brilliant lecturer udll enchant everyone with carefully chosen examples, beautiful slides, and a persuasive explana- tion of why this work matters. This latter type of lecture is what the Friday evening lectures have always been about. From the very first years, director Charles Otis Whitman felt that even a specialized modern laboratory such as the MBL should have a time when the entire community would come together to consider the major scientific problems of the day. Individuals should learn from each other, he urged. People should cooperate even as they pursue their separate research. Regular lectures to address the key problems, as well as to discuss the most effective methods of approach and the best available explanations, should also be able to illustrate to the public what marine biological research is about. With time those lectures have become somewhat more specialized and more technical, but always with emphasis on presenting the latest concerns of the day. Recent years have spawned additional series of general lectures, by journalists on one day and by historians and philosophers on another. Discussing science forms an essential part of MBL life, so the visitor should not be surprised to find all those people moving willingly inside to sit in a lecture hall and listen, even on a perfectly gorgeous and inviting summery afternoon or Friday evening. In fact, the tradition of lecturing to the public as well as the scientific community about biological topics has been a major part of American culture and science for a long time. Boston in the nineteenth century had its naturalist Louis Agassiz, who may well have initially helped to inspire the MBL's Friday evening series. Loids Agassiz Agassiz came to this country ft-om Switzerland in 1846 to give a lecture tour. He loved to travel and to explore the world and had somehow heard about the delights of lecturing in America. No one worried that his English was not perfect. Science was gaining populaiity, and tlie word that he was a fine speaker was enough for an agent to book a tour for him. In Boston Agassiz 1 ARRIVING IN WOODS HOLE /A Louis Agassiz at the blackboard. MBL Archives. spoke to a crowded audience of 1,200 people. When he occasionally had to pause and grasp for the proper English word, he also grasped the chalk and began to draw. Sometimes using both hands, Agassiz drew organisms tliat came alive on the board behind him, entertaining the audience further. Naturalists in the nineteenth century had to draw, because they often spent a high percentage of their time meticulously depicting what they had seen in order to communicate it to others who had not. Naturalists who could not draw had serious trouble. Or those who found painstaking watercolor work carelessly washed away by drops of seawater falling from wet hair after a swim could lose a precious investment. They could not simply photograph what tliey saw, not until the very end of the century, and then only with poorer clarity than the eye could see. They did not have the remarkable advanced technology, such as video microscopy, being devel- oped today. The photographer that the MBL first added to tlie staff in 1897 did not replace practical everyday drawing for quite some time. 8 M^ 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 A tremendous popular success, Louis Agassiz liked the United States and determined; after the death of his first wife, to settle in Boston. There he married Elizabeth Cabot Gary, later president of Radcliffe College. In 1847 he became established at Harvard University, where he founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Always an opponent of evolution, his students once suggested to him that a debate between evolutionists and nonevolutionists might prove illuminating, all in the spirit of open scientific discussion and the search for truth, of course. Agassiz reportedly responded "rather evasively" that "personally I like Mr. Darwin very much; he is my friend." Someone then pointed out that "Darwin's son Frank [Francis] was once told that Agassiz did not accept evolution. 'That's all right,' said Frank, 'father does not believe in the glacial theory.' " Agassiz was very proud of his glacial theory, which held that much of the geological change tliat the earth has experienced has resulted from the cycling of glacial epochs. Apparently Agassiz chose not to pursue the discussion further at that point. Three sketches from Frank Leslie's journal of August 23, 1873, showing scenes from the Anderson School of Natural History at Penikese: Louis Agassiz at the blackboard mf/i chalk in hand, gentlemen dissecting a fish, and a room in the ladies' dormitory. Drawings by Albeit Berghaus, MBL Archives. 1 I ARRIVING IN WOODS HOLE A 9 In 1873 Boston, like much of America, was in the throes of popular enthusiasm for science when Agassiz arrived. The publicity in the second half of the nineteenth century for the notorious race for dinosaur bones by Yale's Othniel Marsh and Pennsylvania's Edward Drinker Cope had inten- sified public awareness of evolution theory and zoology generally. Nature study had gained great populai ity here and abroad. Furthermore, the public wanted education in science, for themselves and for their children. Boston school committees mandated that there should be more science teaching in the schools, because there was little done officially, especially in biological subjects. But who was to teach science? Who was to teach biology? Because biology at the time meant primarily natural history, and because natural history of organisms cannot be learned simply by peering at textbooks, any attempt to introduce biology into the schools meant having to teach the teachers. "Study nature, not books, " Agassiz preached, explaining that he would not allow textbooks into his classroom. But how were these school teachers supposed to study nature? In 1873 a student of Agassiz, Nathaniel Shaler, suggested that Agassiz offer a summer course for teachers. Yet the great popularizer had too many projects demanding his time and was no longer a young man. He was not sure. Besides it would take money to set up a school. He had enough trouble getting sufficient fimds to keep his own Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) at Harvard going in proper style. And where would such a school be? Giving a public lecture to generate support, he began to wonder out loud about tlie possibilities. As he appealed to the Massachusetts legislature for funds for the MCZ and for the summer school, it began to look as though a school might be possible, on Nantucket Island. The Anderson School at Pen^xse Then some of the ever-popular Louis AgassLz's concerns found their way into the New York newspapers, including tlie Times and Tribune. In response, a wealthy New York businessman, John Anderson, wrote to Agassiz offering land on the islajid of Penikese, off the coast of Woods Hole, plus his own house there for Agassiz's personal use: a gift valued at $100,000. He also gave $50,000 to serve as tlie base of a permanent endowment to open a summer school of natural history for teachers. As reported in Nature, Anderson wrote to Agassiz that the school "may be destined in future ages not only to afford the required instruction to the youth of our country, but may be tlie means of attracting to our shores numerous candidates from the Old World, who may find here, in the school to be established by you, those means of fitting themselves for the teaching of Natural History by Nature itself. Which by a strange oversight, appears to 10 JL 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 1 ji Ibk' ffWTrC^^^-^Jjm-ri^^ imrnL. ^P^a D^iiBiff bb s^^yg^i'"'"^^ BH^3 ^^^^^m f- HP ■ ^^^^^ "ig:r^j!l -■-*-»■ :«».