42 M\ 



100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 



Inside the Mess, 1953; 

 Mr. Martin checking 

 tables. Photograph by 

 Alicia Hills, MBL Archives. 



existence of so many alternatives elsewhere draws busy people away from 

 what used to be a life center of the MBL. 



During the time of Old Main, the original set of attached, simple gray 

 wooden buildings built one at a time in 1888, 1890, and 1892, most people 

 at the MBL ate at the Mess. One young wife recalled that other women were 

 astonished that she chose to cook at home rather tlian to join the others at 

 the convenient Mess. She responded that her husband had married, in part, 

 precisely to get such home-cooked meals. He was not fond of the insti- 

 tutional food. Others recalled the food as very good in those early days, 

 especially the inevitable Saturday night baked bean dinner. Originally 

 housed along with several rooms for investigators in what had been the Fays' 

 gardener's cottage at Little Harbor, the Mess soon moved nearer to the main 

 building. Rebuilding the Mess became a priority when it was destroyed 

 by fire in 1920. 



The growth of the population demanded the flexible approach of the 

 Mess, with everyone eating together, family style. Sometimes notations on 

 napkins attested to the exchange of scientific ideas there. After meals, 

 people would continue the conversations begim inside. This was a time for 

 people to break from the individual rescai'ch and to enter tlie community, to 

 eat in leisure and then to gather on the porch talking, to bring tlie pai'ts 

 together into the living MBL whole. 



