Radcliffe Zoological Laboratory
The Radcliffe Zoological Laboratory was created in 1894 when Radcliffe College rented a room on the fifth floor of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University to convert into a women's laboratory. In the 1880s Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, director of the Harvard Annex, negotiated for the use of space for her students in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Prior to the acquisition of this space, science laboratories were taught using inadequate facilities, converting spaces such as bathrooms in old houses into physics laboratories, which Harvard professors often refused to teach in.
Physical space and arrangements
The laboratory space was converted from an office or storage closet, and was sandwiched between other invertebrate storage rooms. This small space was poorly lit and often cramped, as this was the only space Radcliffe women technically had access to. In 1908, in response to pressure from Radcliffe administrators to construct a women's restroom, Alexander Agassiz launched an inquiry about which spaces women were occupying within the building. Agassiz rejected the construction of this restroom because it would obstruct light from hallway windows, despite the fact that the closest women's restrooms to the Radcliffe Zoological Laboratory were within the Natural History Museum galleries, two floors below. Agassiz found that, while Harvard men occupied 14 rooms, Radcliffe women were spilling over from their single designated laboratory space into 3 other rooms. Herbert Spencer Jennings highlighted that segregating instruction by gender was challenging due to the limitation of space, noting thatAgassiz felt that the resources within the Museum of Comparative Zoology should not be ceded to Radcliffe, stating that 'it cannot expect us to sacrifice M.C.Z. for its needs in anyway'.