The course catalog for Hopkins Marine Station advertised in 1923: “The particular advantage of work at the station is the possibility of observing and studying a large number of live animals while these are still fulfilling their role in the general scheme of marine and terrestrial life.”
Among that summer’s registrants was occasional Stanford student John Steinbeck, taking general zoology plus a course in classics and exposition. The latter offering would, according to the catalog, “fulfill the English requirements of medical students.”
More dilettante than scholar, Steinbeck was certainly no medical student. He once characterized research scientists as “dryballs [inhabiting] a world wrinkled with formaldehyde.” Still, literary analysts believe his interest in zoology and ecology shaped much of his worldview. Later in life, Steinbeck told Hopkins ichthyologist Rolf Bolin that what most deeply impressed him that summer were the ecological concepts taught by his zoology professor, C.V. Taylor. Steinbeck wrote: “There are answers to the world’s questions which every man must ask in the little animals of tide pools, in their relations one to another.”
That notion imbued much of his storytelling, notably the human ecosystem he created in Cannery Row. The novel’s most memorable character, “Doc,” was loosely based on Ed Ricketts, a Monterey biologist who befriended Steinbeck in 1930. Now considered the father of modern marine ecology, Ricketts frequently made use of campus resources, especially the extensive library. Stubbornly individualistic, he conducted independent field research while running a small commercial lab (preparing microscope slides for high school and college biology classes) out of a humble split-level bungalow on Cannery Row.
There are few more haunting literary landmarks than the vacant Ricketts lab still standing at 800 Cannery Row. It was the gathering place for a cadre of drinkers and thinkers—among them Steinbeck, author Henry Miller and cultural visionary Joseph Campbell—whose host became the first marine scientist to star in an American novel.
