186 £\ 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 



In addition, the annual reports and the trustees' minutes contain 

 invaluable information, though seldom as much of the story behind the 

 official, sanitized conclusions as one would like. The Lillie Papers, given to 

 the MBL Archives by the University of Chicago, contain his correspondence 

 in preparing his history and help to fill out some of the discussion between 

 the official lines. Other collections of letters and assorted documents give 

 additional perspective. The Collecting Net provides insight into the less 

 formal, human side of MBL events. 



The official records contain myriads of wonderful data: who came, 

 what schools and what countries they represented, for what purposes, how 

 many women, what research they published, what lectures were given, and 

 so forth. There are even compilations of statistics for the early decades. 

 Quantitative historians should take note of this largely untapped resource. 



Many photographs included here also come from the MBL Archives. 

 Most have resided there for some time, the product of past professional and 

 enthusiastic amateur photographers. A few have been given recently, in 

 anticipation of centennial projects. It is hoped that other people will con- 

 sider cleaning out the attic and adding to the extremely impressive collection 

 of many thousands of photos. Each photo collection given recently has been 

 kept intact by donor or photographer to maintain the integrity of the 

 collection. For earlier materials, given over many years and sometimes with 

 no official records kept, every eflFort has been made to identify photogra- 

 phers and donors. MBL archivist Ruth Davis has done all the hard work of 

 sorting through the thousands of photos, selecting the most appropriate, 

 identifying them, and putting them in order. 



The earliest formal photographs were taken by professional Boston 

 photographer Baldwin Coolidge. The MBL evidently hired him to take 

 representative but interesting formal group pictures beginning in the very 

 first years. Many of the glass plate negatives of this first-rate photographer's 

 work are now held by and provided to us courtesy of the Society for the 

 Preservation of New England Antiquities. An apprentice of Coolidge's, 

 Howard S. Brode, who was also a student at the MBL, followed him around 

 and took similar shots. Brode's photos make an informative contrast, as 

 they were never quite as effective. For further discussion of Coolidge, see 

 Jane A. McLaughlin, "Baldwin Coolidge, Photographer 1845-1928, " Sprit- 

 sail, Journal of Falmouth History (1987) Vol. 1 No. 1:0 5-25. 



Then comes the highly informal collection of Gideon Dodds, given in 

 the form of a photo scrapbook, which documents life at the MBL in the 

 1920s. Other similar informal photo albums provide other individual 

 pictures. In addition, Isabel Conklin recently donated a set of photos 

 depicting life around Woods Hole, including pictures of her father, who 

 played such an important role in the early life here. 



