The Jackson Laboratory

Year

Milestone

1900

The papers of Gregor Mendel, the Austrian monk who had set out the rules of genetic inheritance in pea plants, are rediscovered.

1900

Retired schoolteacher Abbie Lathrop begins breeding "fancy" mice at her farm in Granby, Massachusetts. Initially sought as pets, the Granby mice become important in research.

1908

William Castle opens Harvard's Bussey Institution, where many early mouse geneticists, including Clarence Cook Little, get their start.

1909

C.C. Little begins to develop the first inbred mouse strain, designated DBA for dilute, brown, and non-agouti.

1921

Using a pair of black mice from the Granby farm, C.C. Little develops the C57BL and C57BR strains. C57BL/6J (“Black Six”) will become the world’s most essential inbred strain.

1923

C.C. Little, now president of the University of Maine, holds the first summer laboratory session on Mount Desert Island with six students.

1929

C.C. Little ends his term as president of the University of Michigan and founds the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory in Bar Harbor. Support came from Detroit industrialists such as Edsel Ford and Jackson, president of the Hudson Motorcar Company, with land donated by family friend George B. Dorr.