The Fish Commission Laboratory and its influence on the founding of the Marine Biological Laboratory.

Abstract

Recent contributions by Jane Maienschein and Keith Benson deepen our understanding of a number of early marine stations in the United States.' These organizations include the Penikese School of Natural History established by Louis Agassiz; the summer schools and laboratories organized by Alpheus Hyatt at Annisquam and by Alpheus Packard at Salem; William Keith Brooks's Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory; and the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), which celebrated its centennial in 1988. This article will discuss the establishment and accomplishments of another early research organization the laboratory of the U.S. Fish Commission which undertook a major and sustained program in marine biology, under the direction of Spencer Fullerton Baird, between 1871 and 1887.2 In addition, a discussion will be included of Baird's plan after 1882 to create a more general research and educational enterprise in cooperation with other learned institutions. Although that exact scheme was never realized, the plan directly influenced the founding of the MBL at Woods Hole in 1888, one year after Baird's death. Spencer Baird was one of the preeminent zoologists of the nineteenth century. His bibliography includes hundreds of works on reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and especially birds and mammals. As Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution after 1850,