During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, several leading American biologists became interested in establishing a marine station capable of promoting and sustaining advanced research and instruction in marine biology along the lines of successful and influential European biological stations, such as Anton Dorrn's marine-biology station in Naples (in which four American universities officially participated) or Henri Lacaze-Duthier's laboratory at Banyuls-sur-Mer, France. Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-born zoologist, (1807-1873) mounted the first such endeavor at Penikese Island, Massachusetts, in 1873, and during the same period his students Alpheus Hyatt (1838-1902) and Alpheus Packard (1839-1905) established summer programs at the Massachusetts seaports of Annisquam and Salem, respectively. These programs were all short-lived.

The Woods Hole Laboratory.

The most influential early research station was the U.S. Fish Commission laboratory, at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, directed by Spencer Fullerton Baird between 1871 and 1887. Created to survey and study the...