From 1886 to 1889 Charles Otis Whitman [4] was director of the Allis Lake Laboratory [5] in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The lab was established by Edward Phelps Allis [6], Jr. to provide a place for biological research separate from a university setting and a place where an independent scholar like Allis himself could work. Allis had hired Whitman as an instructor to establish the lab, direct it, and lead a research program there. The lab lasted for eight years, attracted several researchers, and the papers that came out of the lab included a focus on embryology [7]. This raised the question of where to publish the work since there were few life science journals being published in the United States , which led Whitman to propose a new journal.