Most new scientific journals start with an introduction, a statement of mission, or something that tells the reader and potential subscriber or submission author what this publication is about. Not The Biological Bulletin. It began its first issue as The Zöological Bulletin in 1897 (The Biological Bulletin in 1899) with an article by Allis himself. Other investigators from Allis Lake Lab and from the MBL submitted their work, including women scientists who were generally rare among life science researchers.
By 1899 Whitman had moved to Clark University and had realized that the journal needed a broader base. The first issue from the MBL and under the new Biological Bulletin name opened with Maynard M. Metcalf on “Some Relations between Nervous Tissue and Glandular Tissue in the Tunicata.” The issue includes articles by T. H. Morgan, Anne Moore, Garry de N. Hough, and C. W. Hargitt. The front matter says only the title of the journal and that it was edited by the Director and Members of the Staff of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Holl, Massachusetts.
This continued for two years, but in 1900 Whitman and the Ginn Company in Boston that was publishing the journal had disagreements, and finding funding for the journal was a challenge. As a result, the 1900 volume had only three spring issues and 1901 came out only midway through the year. Issues resumed full force in 1902 with the New Era Publishing Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (which later became Lancaster Press). This was the real solid start of the journal, with the excellent administrator and Assistant Director of the Marine Biological Laboratory Frank R. Lillie serving as Managing Editor and an appointed editorial board comprised of Whitman, Edwin Grant Conklin, Jacques Loeb, Thomas Hunt Morgan, William Morton Wheeler, and Edmund Beecher Wilson. Lillie remained as managing editor for nearly a quarter of a century and placed the journal, as he did the MBL itself, on a solid intellectual and economic foundation.
Source: Maienschein, Jane, "The Biological Bulletin". Embryo Project Encyclopedia (2008-10-24). ISSN: 1940-5030 http://embryo.asu.edu/handle/10776/1952
