Private company

Harvard Apparatus

Logo: Company itself, Non-free logo, via Wikipedia3

American laboratory equipment manufacturer

Harvard Apparatus is a major US manufacturer of specialized physiological research laboratory equipment with current headquarters in Holliston, Massachusetts.2 From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 19, 2026.

Overview

1901Founded1

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Harvard Apparatus is a major US manufacturer of specialized physiological research laboratory equipment with current headquarters in Holliston, Massachusetts.2

How it started

History

Harvard Apparatus was founded in 1901 by William Townsend Porter, a physiologist at Harvard Medical School. Frustrated by the lack of high quality and cost-effective equipment then available, Porter began manufacturing physiology teaching equipment in a machine shop that he created on the medical school campus. This shop supplied equipment to Harvard Medical School and provided surplus equipment to other schools. Charles W. Eliot, the president of Harvard University, although supportive of Porter's work and mission, was concerned that Porter's enterprise would be viewed as a commercial venture operating on nontaxed property. So, in 1901 Eliot secured capital for Porter to found the Harvard Apparatus Company, which was moved off the Harvard campus to a converted barn in Dover, Massachusetts.

From Wikipedia’s article on Harvard Apparatus, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Leadership

Who has led Harvard Apparatus, and when. Pick a name to see everywhere that person has worked.

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

From Wikidata.1

Employees over time

  • 2023691

Timeline

  1. 1901Founded Founded in Cambridge1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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