Abstract
Biological field stations proliferated in the Rocky Mountains region of the western United States during the early decades of the twentieth century. This essay examines these Rocky Mountain field stations as hybrid lab-field sites from the perspective of the field side of the dichotomy: as field sites with raised walls rather than as laboratories whose walls with the natural world have been lowered. Not only were these field stations transformed to be more like laboratories, but they were also embedded within the particular regional environmental and institutional context of the Rocky Mountains. Using the University of Colorado’s Mountain Laboratory at Tolland and other contemporaneous sites as examples, this essay analyzes key features of these sites, including their location within transportation networks, buildings, equipment, personnel, scheduling, recreational and social activities, and other material and social practices on the ground. Considering both the distinctive and shared characteristics of the Rocky Mountain field stations in comparison to other types of field stations provides a more complete picture of the diversity and range of lab-field hybrid sites in the biological sciences in the early twentieth-century United States.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander, Gordon. 1942. “Francis Ramaley.” Science 96: 102–103.
Allard, Dean C. 1990. “The Fish Commission Laboratory and Its Influence on the Founding of the Marine Biological Laboratory.” Journal of the History of Biology 23: 251–270.
Allen, Garland E. 1975. Life Science in the Twentieth Century. New York: Wiley.
Allen, Garland E. 1979. “Naturalists and Experimentalists: The Genotype and the Phenotype.” Studies in History of Biology 3: 179–209.
Allen, Garland E. 1981. “Morphology and Twentieth-Century Biology: A Response.” Journal of the History of Biology 14: 159–176.
Anonymous. 1904a. “The Alpine Laboratory of the Botanical Seminar of the University of Nebraska.” Science 20: 185–186.
Anonymous. 1904b. “University of Montana Biological Station at Flathead Lake: Announcement for the Summer of 1904.” Bulletin of the University of Montana 22: 331–342.
Anonymous. 1913a. “Mountain and Alpine Laboratories, Colorado.” Journal of Ecology 1: 157.
Anonymous. 1913b. “News Items.” Torreya 13: 68–72.
Anonymous. 1914. “International Phytogeographical Excursion (I.P.E.) in America, 1913.” New Phytologist 13: 30–41.
Anonymous. 1926. The Rocky Mountain Biological Station: 5th Annual Season. Bulletin of the Western State College of Colorado, Gunnison.
Anonymous. 1937. “Science Summer Camp.” The Biologist 18: 183–189.
Benson, Keith R. 1981. “Problems of Individual Development: Descriptive Embryological Morphology in America at the Turn of the Century.” Journal of the History of Biology 14: 115–128.
Benson, Keith R. 1988. “Laboratories on the New England Shore: The ‘Somewhat Different Direction’ of American Marine Biology.” New England Quarterly 61: 55–78.
Benson, Keith R. 1992. “Experimental Ecology on the Pacific Coast: Victor Shelford and His Search for Appropriate Methods.” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 14: 73–91.
Benson, Keith R. 2001. “Summer Camp, Seaside Station, and Marine Laboratory: Marine Biology and Its Institutional Identity.” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 32: 11–18.
Burkhardt, Richard W. 1999. “Ethology, Natural History, the Life Sciences, and the Problem of Place.” Journal of the History of Biology 32: 489–508.
Cittadino, Eugene. 1993. “A ‘Marvelous Cosmopolitan Preserve’: The Dunes, Chicago, and the Dynamic Ecology of Henry Cowles.” Perspectives in Science 1: 520–559.
Clements, Frederick [sic] E. 1913. “The Alpine Laboratory.” Science 37: 327–328.
Devlin, C. Leah and Capelotti, P.J. 1996. “Proximity to Seacoast: G. W. Field, the Marine Laboratory at Point Judith Pond, Rhode Island, 1896–1900.” Journal of the History of Biology 29: 251–265.
Elrod, Morton J. 1901a. “The University of Montana Biological Station.” Journal of Applied Microscopy and Laboratory Methods 4: 1269–1278.
Elrod, Morton J. 1901b. “The University of Montana Biological Station at Flathead Lake.” Rocky Mountain Magazine 2(4): 781–787.
Giles, George H. 1934. “Algae of the Medicine Bow Mountains, in the Vicinity of the University of Wyoming Summer Camp.” University of Wyoming Publications in Science, Botany Series 1(7): 187–218.
Grout, A.J. 1916. “Mosses of Colorado from Tolland and Vicinity.” The Bryologist 19: 1–8.
Jack, Homer A. 1945. “Biological Field Stations of the World.” Chronica Botanica 9: 1–73.
Johnson, John C. 1937. “Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.” The Biologist 18: 105.
Johnson, John C. 1961. “A Brief History of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.” Colorado Magazine 38: 81–103.
Kingsland, Sharon E. 1993. “An Elusive Science: Ecological Enterprise in the Southwestern United States.” Michael Shortland (ed.), Science and Nature: Essays in the History of the Environmental Sciences. Oxford: British Society for the History of Science, pp. 151–179.
Kingsland, Sharon E. 2009. “Frits Went’s Atomic Age Greenhouse: The Changing Landscape on the Lab-Field Border.” Journal of the History of Biology 42: 289–324.
Kingsland, Sharon E. 2010. “The Role of Place in the History of Ecology.” Ian Billick and Mary V. Price (eds.), The Ecology of Place: Contributions of Place-Based Research to Ecological Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 15–39.
Klingle, Matthew W. 1998. “Plying Atomic Waters: Lauren Donaldson and the ‘Fern Lake Concept’ of Fisheries Management.” Journal of the History of Biology 31: 1–32.
Kohler, Robert E. 2002a. Landscapes and Labscapes: Exploring the Lab-Field Border in Biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kohler, Robert E. 2002b. “Labscapes: Naturalizing the Lab.” History of Science 40: 473–501.
Kohler, Robert E. 2002c. “Place and Practice in Field Biology.” History of Science 40: 189–210.
Kohler, Robert E. 2006. All Creatures: Naturalists, Collectors, and Biodiversity, 1850–1950. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kohler, Robert E. 2011. “Paul Errington, Aldo Leopold, and Wildlife Ecology: Residential Science.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 41: 216–254.
Maienschein, Jane. 1988. “History of American Marine Laboratories: Why Do Research at the Seashore?’ American Zoologist 28: 15–25.
Maienschein, Jane. 1989. 100 Years Exploring Life, 1888–1988: The Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. Boston: Jones & Bartlett.
Maienschein, Jane. 1994. “Pattern and Process in Early Studies of Arizona’s San Francisco Peaks.” BioScience 44: 479–485.
Maienschein, Jane, Rainger, Ronald and Benson, Keith R. 1981. “Introduction: Were American Morphologists in Revolt?’ Journal of the History of Biology 14: 83–87.
Montgomery, Georgina. 2005. “Place, Practice and Primatology: Clarence Ray Carpenter, Primate Communication and the Development of Field Methodology, 1931–1945.” Journal of the History of Biology 38: 495–533.
Pauly, Philip J. 1988. “Summer Resort and Scientific Discipline: Woods Hole and the Structure of American Biology.” R. Rainger, K.R. Benson and J. Maienschein (eds.), The American Development of Biology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 121–150.
Ramaley, Francis. 1909a. “The University of Colorado Mountain Laboratory.” University of Colorado Studies 7: 91–95.
Ramaley, Francis. 1909b. Wild Flowers and Trees of Colorado. Boulder, CO: Greenman.
Ramaley, Francis. 1927. Colorado Plant Life. Boulder: University of Colorado.
Ramaley, Francis and Dodds, G.S. 1917. “University of Colorado Mountain Laboratory.” University of Colorado Studies 12: 53–64.
Ramaley, Francis and Robbins, W.W. 1909. “A Summer Laboratory for Mountain Botany.” Plant World 12: 105–110.
Robbins, W.W. 1942. “Francis Ramaley (1870–1942).” Ecology 23: 385–386.
Rodeck, Hugo G. 1937. “Science Lodge.” The Biologist 18: 101–104.
Schneider, Daniel W. 2000. “Local Knowledge, Environmental Politics, and the Founding of Ecology in the United States: Stephen Forbes and ‘The Lake as Microcosm’ (1887).” Isis 91: 681–705.
Stearns, J.C. 1938. “The Mount Evans Laboratory.” Scientific Monthly 46: 242–248.
Vetter, Jeremy. 2004. “Science Along the Railroad: Expanding Field Work in the US Central West.” Annals of Science 61: 187–211.
Vetter, Jeremy. 2010. “Rocky Mountain High Science: Teaching, Research, and Nature at Field Stations.” J. Vetter (ed.), Knowing Global Environments: New Historical Perspectives on the Field Sciences. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 108–134.
W., I.E. 1922. “Dedication of the University of Colorado Mountain Laboratory.” Science 56: 162–163.
Waller, Donald M. and Flader, Susan. 2010. “Leopold’s Legacy: An Ecology of Place.” Ian Billick and Mary V. Price (eds.), The Ecology of Place: Contributions of Place-Based Research to Ecological Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 40–62.
Way, Albert G. 2006. “Burned to Be Wild: Herbert Stoddard and the Roots of Ecological Conservation in the Southern Longleaf Pine Forest.” Environmental History 11: 500–526.
Young, Christian C. 1998. “Defining the Range: The Development of Carrying Capacity in Management Practice.” Journal of the History of Biology 31: 61–83.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vetter, J. Labs in the Field? Rocky Mountain Biological Stations in the Early Twentieth Century. J Hist Biol 45, 587–611 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-011-9302-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-011-9302-8