Laboratories on the New England Shore: The "Somewhat Different Direction" of American Marine Biology

Abstract

IN 1873, shortly after Anton Dohrn had founded his remarkably influential marine station, the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, Louis Agassiz opened a summer school in Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts, on Penikese Island. Dohrn had provided encouragement and a model for establishing other marine stations worldwide both in terms of institutional organization and support and in terms of research activities, which originally centered around descriptive studies of the local fauna and flora as well as morphological studies of marine organisms designed to clarify evolutionary issues.1 Although Agassiz was aware of the structure of Dohrn's enterprise, his own project emphasized the importance of marine biology stations to teach methods of natural history observation, primarily to secondary school teachers. Agassiz's venture on Penikese Island (1873-74) was followed closely by Alpheus Packard's Summer School of the Peabody Academy of Science (1876-81) in Salem and Alpheus Hyatt's laboratory at Annisquam (1881-86) on Cape Ann. At the same time, other scientists, including Louis Agassiz's son Alexander, were nudging marine biology in somewhat different directions. Alexander's small private laboratory at his home in Newport, Rhode Island, and William