inter micro – the first 60 years - mccrone research institute - the... · 2018-03-01 · 67 inter...

67

Inter Micro – The First 60 Years1

Brian J. FordGonville & Caius College, Cambridge University*

SUMMARY

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the firstmicroscopy conference with which Walter McCronewas concerned. To mark the event, the 2008 ‘Eveningwith Brian’ took the form of a cruise on Lake Michiganduring which Brian J. Ford gave an account of the pastsixty years. In his illustrated lecture, Brian recountedthe history of the conferences from a personal perspec-tive and, with a series of video inserts, reminded del-egates of times past. This paper is based on that pre-sentation and sets out Brian’s account of a unique se-ries of meetings.

ORIGINS

At eight o’clock on the morning of Thursday, June10, 1948, Professor Paul L. Copeland rose to his feetand cleared his throat. Neatly attired in dark suit andtie, he welcomed the assembled delegates to an un-usual meeting: an assembly of light and electron mi-croscopists. The gathering was in the Stevens Hotel,Chicago. When the hotel first opened, back in the 1920s,it was the largest in the world. It stood between Sev-enth and Eighth Streets and had 3,000 guest roomswith ballrooms, restaurants, retail shops, and meet-ing facilities. Within a decade, as the depression hitChicago, the hotel was in receivership but it revivedafter the war and was eager to welcome this pioneer-ing group of innovative scientists. Today, that hotel isthe Chicago Hilton and Towers.

The meeting had been organised through theArmour Research Foundation and Illinois Institute ofTechnology and it brought together many of America’s

leading microscopists. Although conceived as an ex-perimental meeting (and a one-off if necessary) it strucka chord and went on to become one of the most suc-cessful and enduring conferences in microscopy. Theidea for the conference had arisen from a conversationbetween two young Armour scientists. One was anelectron microscopist, Charlie Tufts; the other was alight microscopist named Walter McCrone who re-tained his connection with the conference until the dayhe died.

Walter Cox McCrone was born in Wilmington,Delaware in 1916. Even in his early years, he had anearnest and knowing expression; one that clearlylooked towards a future of inquiry and endeavor. In1938 he went to study chemistry at Cornell, under E.M. Chamot and C. W. Mason. Under Professor JackJohnson he read for a PhD. Johnson proposed he look atmethods of synthesizing derivatives of cis-endomethylene-3, 6- 4-tetrahydrophthalic acid an-hydride, just the kind of topic in which a young chem-ist could immerse himself. McCrone was having noneof it. He had personal passions even then, and insteaddevoted himself to the topic that was to dominate hislife’s work: Application of the Polarized Light Micro-scope in Organic Chemistry.

Jackson was not the only person whom McCronehad to convince. Mason himself had advised againstthis choice of topic. In Mason’s view, microscopy wasall sewn up, and there was no worthwhile researchleft to be done in the field. McCrone since speculatedthat they may have eased his path because they werekeen to see the back of him. For instance, he had formeda trade union that successfully campaigned for stipendincreases of 40 per cent. He also procured a master key

MICROSCOPE Vol 56:2 p.67-85 (2008)

1 Presented at Inter/Micro 2008, Chicago, IL* Rothay House, Mayfield Rd, Eastrea, Cambridge, England PE7 2AY

68 MICROSCOPE(2008)56

for the Baker Laboratory, with its fine views acrosscampus to Cayuga Lake and the gorges. He used tohelp students work out what were the likely questionsin their forthcoming exams, and even held beer par-ties up on the roof, when he wasn’t slipping out toswim in the lakes.

Whatever the reasons, McCrone was promptlygranted his PhD and – after ten enjoyable years atCornell – he took up a post in the Armour ResearchFoundation, the contract arm of the Illinois Institute ofTechnology (IIT). It was there he met Charlie Tufts, whowas working with the then new electron microscope.The two colleagues spent much time deep in discus-sion and in 1948 their conversations turned to a pos-sible joint meeting between the two disciplines. SaidMcCrone later, “Charles Tufts was an electron micros-copist. He and I started talking about a symposium onelectron and light microscopy. We found that the mi-croscopy community was ready and enthusiastic.”

THE FIRST CONFERENCE

On March 29, 1948, Tufts and McCrone sent roundtheir formal announcement, a typed, duplicated letterthat set out what they had in mind. Their original in-tention was to hold the meeting on campus at IIT, andfrom the start the brief of the meeting was clear. “Thesubjects considered will include the application of lightand electron microscopy to metals, plastics, biology,fine particles, fibers . . . there will be ample opportu-nity for the exchange of ideas and problems,” theywrote.

One problem immediately arose. The meeting wasdue to start on June 10, just six weeks away! Therewas little time to make formal arrangements, but theeagerness of post-war microscopists to foregather anddiscuss their burgeoning new disciplines gave themno shortage of speakers. The lack of a strict format gavethe meeting a sense of informality, and this proved tobe one of its greatest assets.

The meeting that Professor Copeland opened wasa snapshot of American microscopy. Phase contrastwas one major topic, and their speaker was Nobel Lau-reate Professor Fritz Zernicke who had pioneered thisrevolutionary technique. Professor C. W. Mason spokeon the role of the microscopist ‘viewed at high andlow power’. Cecil Hall of MIT spoke on the analogiesbetween light and electron microscopy, and R. D.

The young Walter Cox McCrone pictured with his sister atWilmington, Delaware. The photograph reveals he had anearnest sense of intelligence, even at this early age.

Walter McCrone and the research team at Armour in 1949.The second microscope conference was being planned. Theonly woman in this picture is not identified by name.

69

Heidenreich of Bell Telephone Laboratories had beeninvestigating the electron microscopy of metallic al-loys. There were papers on organic pigments, electrondiffraction (from the General Electric Company), andseveral papers on phase contrast.

There were presentations on pigments (from Cy-anamid), crystals (from Eastman Kodak), high speedmicrotomy (G.E.C.), and a range of EM techniques. Bi-ology was restricted in scope, though there was a pa-per on the electron microscopy of the tubercle bacil-lus (BCG) and on bacteriophage viruses. And therewas a technical exhibition, with displays by Ameri-can Optical, Bausch and Lomb, General Electric andseveral others. On the evening of Friday June 11 a ban-quet was arranged with guests from Mexico, Torontoand Cornell, followed by a presentation on the crys-tallization and fusion of abrasives and refractorymaterials by Mr Henry N. Baumann of theCarborundum Company. It is noteworthy that his lec-ture was illustrated by movie film – at the time a rela-tively rare innovation.

The unusual nature of the meeting gave it wide-spread appeal and there were some 200 registrants.Not only was an interdisciplinary conference on mi-croscopy a lure for everyone involved in this rapidlyexpanding science, but at that time institutions andcompanies were happy for employees to attend. What’smore, they willingly paid their costs and gladly gavetime off. The registration fee was $5.00 and a hotel roomat the Stevens Hotel cost delegates $8.00.

McCrone and Tufts were eager to gain feedbackfrom this spectacular launch. They had asked TheodoreG. Rochow of the Cyanamid Company for his response,with no punches pulled. On July 26, 1948 he wrote alengthy missive setting out his feelings. One section inparticular stands out today: “The informality whichaccompanied this year’s symposium should be a partof this tradition,” he wrote. In Rochow’s view, this wasthe ideal way to encourage the exchange of cutting-edge thinking. He also pointed out that findings couldbe discussed “a long while before they would appearin print”.

These were prophetic observations. The haste withwhich the first meeting was arranged gave it an air ofinformality that lives on to this day. There is no ‘toptable’ at our banquets; leaders in the field are usuallyseated next to relative newcomers and the free inter-change of ideas remains a hallmark of our annual meet-ing.

MICROSCOPY 1949

The next year’s conference at the Stevens Hotel wasa symposium on ‘Fine Particles and Resolution’. AsGary Laughlin has since pointed out, this was in manyways the first meeting on what we now callnanotechnology. The program was by this time pro-fessionally designed and properly printed, and one cansee a looser conference structure. Rather than singlepresentations, speakers were supplemented by pan-els to broaden the discussion. Perhaps the previousyear’s banquet speech had gone on too long, for thespeaker for this second conference in 1949 –C. E. Barnettof the New Jersey Zinc Company – was firmly pro-moted, in print, as spending ‘a few minutes’ telling ofhis work. Time was also set aside for what was de-scribed as ‘brief descriptions’ of others working withfine particles and there would be discussion ‘if timepermits’. Clearly, people had over-run during the pre-vious year’s conference!

One of the speakers was Roger Loveland, who laterwrote a masterful two-volume book entitled PracticalPhotomicrography. I warmly reviewed it for New Scientist

First announcement.


magazine in 1970 and then bumped into Loveland in ataxi queue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As two strang-ers, we agreed to share a cab into town – the line ofcabs at the airport had long since disappeared and wewere waiting in vain for more to appear – and fell intoconversation on the journey. Only then did we dis-cover that this was the man I’d been so keen to meet,and that I was the author of the review he had hopedone day to encounter.

A more recent coincidence centers on Gary Nichollswho has come to lecture from Pfizer Research, UK. Heis one of the many Inter/Micro regulars whom we have

The author (standing) at home with Dr. John McArthurwhose portable microscope is still in production today. Dr.McArthur described its development at the 1962 conference.

Part of Rochow letter

Front cover 1949 program.

Sample page 1949 session.

71

entertained at our Cambridgeshire home – and in hiscase there was an added reason to visit. His motherlived in a house right alongside our village green, amatter of yards from where I sit, writing these words.Sometimes it is, indeed, a small world.

THE 1950S

By 1950, when the meeting transferred to theSheraton hotel, informality had become the backboneof the conference. The single theme of this more mod-est affair was the study of thin films, and rather than alarge number of separate scheduled presentations, theytried out discussion groups on topics like the forma-tion of thin films (Thursday morning), geometry(Thursday afternoon), structure (Friday morning) andresearch problems (Friday afternoon, continuing onSaturday). On the Friday evening Charlie Tuftsorganised sessions on the latest developments in elec-

Front cover 1950 program. Sample page 1950 session.

tron microscopy, to help everyone keep up to date. Hisspeakers came from the Philips Company in the Neth-erlands, and from R.C.A.

Walter McCrone’s work as a consultant was mean-while continuing apace, and one day he visited ArthurD. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They were thefirst management consultancy (founded in 1886) andemployed a young analytical chemist whom I can de-scribe only as a demure power-house named LucyBeman. She had qualified in 1945 with a BA degree inchemistry from Wellesley College, Massachusetts andit was a common interest in microscopy that drew thetwo together. In 1957 they were married, and LucyMcCrone – who remains a skillful microscopist – wasto become a constant presence at the symposia. WithLucy’s encouragement, Walter McCrone decided to re-alize his own vision and went on to found McCroneAssociates (in 1956) and then the McCrone ResearchInstitute (in 1960).


After the small 1950 meeting, Tufts had becomeless involved. By 1958 the symposium was entitled,simply, ‘Microscopy, a Symposium’. The program re-minded delegates that it was sponsored by W. C.McCrone Associates and the conference took place atthe Del Prado Hotel on Lake Shore Drive at 53rd Street,Chicago. The program was closely organised andtightly timed. Although the informal discussion-groupstructure was still there, named speakers tackled spe-cific topics. They ranged from ‘Interference and PhaseMicroscopy’ and ‘Spherulites in High Polymer Films’to ‘Birefringence in Polystyrene’ and the microscopyof ‘Nylon Fabric after Impact’ – seven contributors inthe morning, ten in the afternoon! Seventy speakerswere named in the program that year. The crowdedprogram was back.


Among them was the young Shinya Inoue, whoreturned thirty years later as our banquet speaker. Theafter-dinner speech on the evening of June 10, 1958 wasgiven by John Bunyan, then the President of the RoyalMicroscopical Society. Bunyan later invited me towork with him on the microscopy of wound healingmechanisms, and in due course he contributed the Fore-word to my book The Revealing Lens, Mankind and theMicroscope, which was published by Harrap in 1973.

MCCRONE RESEARCH AS SPONSORS

The connection between McCrone and the RoyalMicroscopical Society continued to make its mark dur-ing the 1960s. By this time the Chicago meetings weresponsored, as they are to this day, by the McCrone

73

Research Institute (McRI) and were held on alternateyears. The first conference of that decade was calledMicro-60. This raised a few comments, for the RMShad used the term ‘Micro’ for some of their symposia(their present-day biennial conference is entitled ‘Mi-cro Science’) and in 1962 the RMS was approached byLucy McCrone to ask if they had any objection to theuse of the term ‘Micro’ for the Chicago meetings. TheRMS said they had no reason to object and the name‘Micro’ became permanently attached to our confer-ences. Because the meetings had tended to take placein alternate years, the conference in 1962 was actuallythe ninth in the series.

Now that the series of meetings was successfullyestablished, the McCrones began to look overseas.Walter McCrone had been in close contact with the

publishers of a journal named The Microscope, whichhad been founded by the grandly-named ArthurLawrence Edward Barron. Walter acquired Barron’sjournal in 1962, added “and the Crystal Front” to thename and began publishing in Brighton, on the southcoast of England, with Harold M. Malies as editor. Itwas resolved to hold one of the conferences in the town.The meeting was arranged at the Grand Hotel in 1963.This was the best hotel in the town, and indeed waslater the choice of the Conservative Party for their his-toric conference in 1984 when the hotel was blown upby IRA terrorists. Five people were killed that night. Iwas in Brighton next morning, and watched the res-cue operation from the stony beach; the sight of work-ers picking diligently through rubble, seeking survi-vors, looked like scenes a WW2 movie – but this was



Martin Scott, Gene Grieger, Irma Quackin and Dale Bush.

A surviving picture of the 1962 conference. Sponsored byMcCrone Research Institute (as the conference is to this day)the meeting was based at the Del Prado Hotel on LakeshoreDrive, Chicago.

At the 1965 exhibition, Walter C. McCrone (with Dr.Clayton Matthews) meets Dr Karl Jung of Leitz Incorporated(right) at the scientific exhibition.

The young Jack Dodd, who remained a regular participantuntil after his retirement, took his research on schlierenmicroscopy as his topic during the 1962 conference.

In 1968, a mews in Hampstead was given a name that’sunique in London streets. Doris Nelson negotiated for theMcCrone name to be commemorated.

75

devastatingly real. In the modern world it has almostbecome familiar.

The foreign venue worked well enough for Micro-65 to be planned in England. Professor Robert Barerhosted the next English meeting at Sheffield Univer-sity. Barer was a distinguished cell biologist, and I latercame to know him through the Royal MicroscopicalSociety conferences. Members of the Royal Microscopi-cal Society had been invited to each conference eversince John Bunyan’s visit and in 1966, back in the UnitedStates, the meeting was actually named ‘RMS-Chicago-66’. This was the thirteenth in the series, and at thatconference a young Dr Jack Dodd gave a lecture onSchlieren microscopy. Jack remained a regular con-tributor to the meetings for decades. Dr George Svihlaof the Argonne National Laboratory presented a pa-per on Leeuwenhoek’s research into the yeast Saccharo-myces. Svihla had constructed microscopes that illus-trated how Leeuwenhoek had documented yeast cells,and many years later he invited me to stay at his homein Ogden Dunes, Indiana, where he and his wife livedwithin a stone’s throw of the famous whistling sands.He showed me his experiments, and the tiny micro-scopes he constructed. And he showed me round hishome, too, which was distinguished by having a shal-low pond for a roof in which grasses grew, keeping thehouse comfortably cool in the heat of high summer. Hewas always a pioneer.

The return of the conference to England in the fol-lowing year took the 1967 meeting to Cambridge Uni-versity, where their Honorary Chairman was Profes-sor Vernon Cosslett. He and I first met at a Royal Mi-croscopical Society meeting in Oxford University. I hadbeen elected a Fellow back in 1963, when you had tosubmit published work and be recommended by Fel-lows. At that time the letters FRMS were accepted as aqualification in their own right, but as the Society be-came ever more anxious to boost membership – andapplied ever looser criteria for Fellowship – they wereeventually told that they could no longer use the ‘let-ters after the name’. The Society, after all, possessed aRoyal handle, and such matters were taken seriously.From that time on, members could describe themselvesas a ‘Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society’ inwords, spelt out in full, but no longer as an FRMS.

I knew Cosslett as Ellis, his second name, which healways preferred. He was at the Cavendish Labora-tory – where I now carry out my scanning electronmicroscopy – and was President of the RMS. The lasttime I saw him was at his home in Cambridge shortlybefore he died, in 1990. By that time he could no longerspeak, and was severely disabled; but he could hear

well enough and we sat as I gave him news of mutualfriends and tried, as well as I could, to update him onwhat had been happening in the world outside. The1967 meeting was held at Churchill College, a sparsebrown brick building that looks like a vast public lava-tory a mile or so from the city center and the base forthe Cambridge Society for the Application of Research,of which I am now the President. There we organizefortnightly meetings on scientific topics, and in No-vember 1997, Walter and Lucy visited us at home inCambridgeshire, and Walter gave an unforgettable lec-ture to the CSAR.

THE DAWN OF INTER/MICRO

By the time of the next Chicago conference in 1968,the name had changed to Inter/Micro. It has been withus ever since. By this time, McCrones had changed theformat of The Microscope and Crystal Front and had begunto develop it as a mainstream journal for microscopywith Dawn Riley as the editor. Under its new title ofThe Microscope it was gaining increasing interest amongmicroscopists and was fast becoming the house jour-nal of Inter/Micro. By 1968 Walter and I were in con-tact and at his suggestion I submitted my first researchpaper to Dawn Riley. It concerned the formation ofplatelet-like bodies by a human granulocyte and itsacceptance for publication in The Microscope marked thebeginning of a long relationship. Walter extended aninvitation for me to speak at his next conference, forInter/Micro 69 was scheduled to take place at ImperialCollege, London. It was the first time that Walter and Imet. Walter said he was glad to see something with abiological slant in the program, and was keen to en-courage me to speak on my research, so in 1969 I spokeon my investigations of hemostatic mechanisms. Thiswas an exciting field to investigate, and my discover-ies were published in the popular press. The researchwent on to be featured in the ‘highlights’ section of theMcGraw Hill International Yearbook of Science and Technol-ogy for 1970. A more recent account of the researchwas published in the scientific literature in 2006 andalso in 2007, so it has remained current since my lec-ture to Inter/Micro 69 in London, almost 40 years ear-lier.

During the early 1970s the conferences continuedto alternate each year between America and England.In 1971 the meeting returned to Imperial College andwith the added catchment of the RMS it attracted al-most 200 delegates from 15 countries. One of the speak-ers was John McArthur who had developed his suc-cessful portable microscope during his work on ma-


laria in the tropics. He and I later became firm friends;we met either at his home at Waterbeach, or at myhome in Eastrea, for the rest of his life, and I remain incontact with his surviving family to this day.

Dawn Riley edited McCrone’s new journal, The Micro-scope, and is here reminding Roy Currence of Xerox DataSystems to renew his subscription at the 1970 conference.

Dr Roger Cheng, winner of the 1970 photomicrographycompetition, is presented by Czech microscopist Dr VladimirSekera with his prize – the two-volume work on photomicro-graphy by Roger Loveland.

The Chairman of the Board of Governors at ImperialCollege, London, Lord Sherborn (left), with Dr. McCroneand conference Chairman Professor Robert Barer (right) atInter/Micro 71.

John Bunyan, a direct descendant of his illustrious authornamesake, was President of the Royal Microscopical Societywhen he spoke at Inter/Micro 70.

From 1972, the even years were spent in Chicago(at the Sheraton-Blackstone that year) while the oddyears saw the conference at Cambridge University. Thenext Cambridge meeting was held in 1973 at King’sCollege, Cambridge, and it was the first at which I gave

77

two presentations. I spoke on the role of microorgan-isms in environmental pollution control, and also gavea paper on the implications of my proposed new lawson biohazards. The subject of the former talk went onto grow into the science of microbial bioremediation,and the other talk led to safety laws being passed inmany countries around the world. The audiences wereso supportive, and encouraging; that has always beenthe hallmark of Inter Micro.

There were many adventures during that week,which Anna Teetsov vividly remembers. The delegatesstayed in the student accommodation at Queen’s Col-lege. The rooms, left empty for the summer vacation,were sparsely furnished and inefficiently heated.Queen’s had been founded in 1448 and the windowslooked out onto the River Cam (known, perversely, asGranta for the distance that it flows through Cam-bridge itself). The proximity to the river, with tourists

punting gleefully up and down, was appreciated byeveryone. The delegates ate lunch and dinner in thehall at King’s College, which had been founded byHenry VI (after whom it is named) and which had beenfinally finished by King Henry VIII in 1551. Few del-egates had remembered the closing times for the col-lege gates, and one night arrived back at their quarterstoo late to be admitted. Some found a narrow passage-way that eventually allowed them in; others – moreagile by far – actually scaled the outer wall like under-graduates to get back to their rooms.

I spoke at four of the Cambridge meetings throughthe seventies, and was honored to give the openingaddresses in 1975 and 1977. British microscopist GaryNichols, a regular speaker at Inter/Micro over the years,also attended the conference in 1977. At the time, hewas working at Cape Asbestos Fibres in West London.Gary recalls the delegates unlocking the traditionallow punts from the colleges and taking trips along theriver late at night. “This was almost a tradition, im-mediately after the banquet,” he recalls. “We raced forabout an hour, until we were tired or the police cameand shouted at us from a bridge.”

Arrangements for the Cambridge conferences werebeing coordinated by the redoubtable Doris Nelson –London’s first female stockbroker – and Sara Mark ofMcCrone Scientific Ltd, the consulting company thatWalter and Lucy had established to handle their Brit-ish contracts. After meeting Walter and the Nelsons,Gary decided to leave Cape Asbestos to join McCrone

Bob Caron and Rober Muggli with John Reffner and WalterMcCrone at Inter/Micro.

Martin Scott and Mitch Sieminski with Nancy Daerr (center)and Walter McCrone (right) at Inter/Micro in the mid-1970s.

Walter McCrone introduces the banquet speaker at Inter/Micro 73 at Cambridge University, England. On his right,Anna Teetsov and her husband; on his left, guest speaker Dr.John H.L. Watson.


Research Associates Ltd. (London) in 1978 and stayedthere until December 1984. Gary attended, presentedat and helped in the day-to-day running of the confer-ences at King’s College, Cambridge in 1979, 1981, and1983. He remembers them as “good, fun meetings witha splendid banquet in the college dining hall. That washelped also by the Cambridge beer festival which washeld during the same week in the old Corn Exchange!”

The London premises of McCrone Associates werein a small lane which Doris managed to have officiallynamed McCrone Mews. It is there, in Hampstead, NorthLondon, to this day. Doris Nelson and her husbandJamie were at Inter/Micro again in 2001 and remainactive in their nineties. When I recently visited Jamiein Hampstead he showed me his newly invented equip-ment for recording the unique facets of gemstones, andhe was making some of these devices for Americangemstone dealers.

THE MCCORMICK YEARS

Thereafter the conference had returned to Chicago.In the 1980s, I was approached to see whether Inter/Micro could once more return to Cambridge Univer-sity. I was regularly chairing conferences at MagdaleneCollege so it was easy to make enquiries of the rightpeople. For a time the prospects looked promising, butit was not to be. Inter/Micro settled down to an annualtimetable in Chicago, and has remained there eversince. During the 1980s the conference was based eachyear at the curiously-named McCormick Inn, at thetime a great tower block hotel just south of the Chi-cago Loop. The arrangements were now handled byMs. Nancy Daerr, who would remain Dr. McCrone’sassistant until his death in 2002. Nancy came to knowthe microscopist fraternity well, and helped to buildon the sense of informal contact and social mixing forwhich the meeting had become renowned.

By this time, the conference had adopted itspresent-day pattern. There were 6/8 papers in themorning, and the same in the afternoon; in each casethe chairman gave the last paper of their session. Look-ing back at Inter/Micro 82 it is intriguing to see theemergence of many familiar figures. John Reffner wasthere, speaking on the need for standards in micros-copy. Hazel Bales was addressing the issue of particleidentification; then Bill Bryant, who was with us evenwhen bowed low with spinal illness, spoke on crys-tallography, Arthur Coates reviewed some of his casehistories, and Leo Barrish looked at textile SEMs. Weheard from such regular contributors as Jack Dodd,Dale Quackenbush, Wayne Niemeyer, Thom Hopen,

Walter McCrone – captured here lecturing on his favoritesubject at the Talbott Hotel during Inter/Micro 2000 –remained in fine form as a speaker long after others wouldhave retired.

Delegates out on the town in downtown Chicago after a dayof lectures. Accompanied by Nancy Daerr are Andy Bowen,John Smoliga, and Arthur Coates.

A promising junior microscopist at the McCrone ResearchInstitute was Gary Laughlin, who was then the youngprodigy of the organization. Not any more . . .

79

Mark Palenik, Fay Goldblatt, Anna Teetsov and (ofcourse) Walter C. McCrone himself. From this time on,the meetings maintained the format we would recog-nize today.

Video was taken of the banquets during the 1980sby Dr. Jack Bryant, using a camcorder the size of a suit-case which he waved threateningly at anyone he couldfind. His old tapes remind us of many of those facesand others who went on to build their own careers,like Peter Cooke who largely created the gardens atMcRI and now teaches asbestos courses in many coun-tries, and Felicia Hinant who graciously assisted meeach year at the SMSI auction has since qualified as adoctor of medicine. Over the years we have regularlylearned unique insights from Eric Chatfield on asbes-

Sample page 1982 session.Front cover 1982 program.

tos, the wise overview lectures of Mr. Jeff Hollifield,presentations by Peter de Forest, who imparts so muchin-depth knowledge of forensics, as does Skip Palenikwith his presentations and master-class sessions. TonyHavics has not only presented a number of fine talksand workshops, but this year reintroduced the micro-graph competition that we have missed for many years.Randy Boltin and Rich Brown have also been regularsfor years, along with specialists like Peter Diazcuk, PeteBarnett, Wayne Moorehead, Kevin Brady, DickeyHuntamer and Susan Young. Larry Wayne returnedthis year with a presentation on manufacturing de-fects in CDs, after a decade away from microscopy(making gourmet chocolates in California, an interestthat stemmed from his microscopical studies of these


foodstuffs). Such interests, far from hard-core micros-copy, are not so unusual. Another of the great namesin American microscopy, John Delly, immersed him-self in Chinese calligraphy and ballet – dancing, notmerely attending – after he left McCrone Research.

Steven Schaffer, who was there in earlier years,plans to return to forensic microscopy after some yearsof absence. Schaffer has always been ahead of his time.Some twenty years ago he gave us a fine talk on thefuture of digital databases. He had prepared a talkbased on the first-ever CD-ROM of the Guinness Book ofRecords. I watched his presentation with interest, sinceI have long been an adviser to the Guinness editors.Suddenly, my eye was caught by the entry he wasdemonstrating. “What shall we find?” Steve was say-ing. “World’s fastest mammal? Right – here it is, thecheetah. All found within a fraction of a second. Noneed waste time turning the pages.”

But I looked at the entry with a sense of increasingperplexity. ‘The cheetah may not have been runningapartment out,’ it read, describing a timed run at astadium in London. At first I simply disregarded it,but then turned back to the problem, determined towork out what was wrong with the wording. Sud-denly, it dawned. “Forgive my interrupting,” I said,“but the phrase ‘apartment out’ makes no sense at all.At least, it doesn’t until you recall that an ‘apartment’in the USA is a ‘flat’ in England.” The point was – hadthe cheetah been running flat out. Problem solved. Stevepioneered this form of digital database but the market

Meaningful moments at Inter Micro 2002: (L-R) Pre-dinnerarrangements between Dorothy Mikuska with Nancy Daerrand Jan Ford.

Tony Havics surrounded by microscopists at his workshop forthose attending Inter/Micro. These offer a unique chance tolearn procedures – and to ask pertinent questions.

wasn’t ready. We now use resources like the ParticleAtlas in digital form without stopping to consider whata novelty it once was.

The mid-week social event of Inter/Micro centerson the annual banquet. Until about 1970 there weretwo. The first was the conference dinner, and the sec-ond was the annual banquet of the State Microscopi-cal Society of Illinois (SMSI). In more recent decadesthere has been just the one, the SMSI banquet. This isnot strictly part of our conference. It is always followedby an auction in favor of the Society’s charitablefundraising. The Annual General Meeting of the SMSItakes place between the dinner and the auction andalways provides light relief for the more stoic Inter/Micro delegates. A slate of officers, previously agreedin private meetings, is presented for approval – thoughthe arrangements are not always entirely predictable.The affable Bill Mikuska, once installed as President,stayed in office for almost a decade and one of his An-nual General Meetings was omitted from the proceed-ings altogether.

On another occasion in the eighties the then Presi-dent, Dr Wynn Hopkins, called to the podium the nomi-nating officer, Ed Lebryk. Ed has attended Inter/Microregularly for more than 40 years and is a long-stand-ing member of SMSI, though on this occasion was sam-pling the fine brandies in the hotel bar. WalterMcCrone stood up and called, loudly, for the missingofficer. Ed Lebryk emerged somewhat unsteadily fromthe bar, and – realizing the situation – immediately

81

nominated Walter as the officer responsible. “Whatme?” said Walter, taken aback. “Am I the Chairman ofthe nominating committee?”

“Why sure,” Ed replied. “We just made you Chair-man.”

And so the meeting resumed, with Walter in fullcharge and Ed, in his most convivial manner, safelyseated nearby. In 1984 I had been invited to give thebanquet speech on the subject of my research intoAntony van Leeuwenhoek, the Dutch pioneer of mi-crobiology. I spoke again in 1986, when the presenta-tion was dubbed ‘An Evening with Brian J. Ford’ andthen in 1988 Dr McCrone dubbed these presentationssimply ‘An Evening with Brian’, the title they havehad ever since.

There were (as they always are) both good andbad aspects of our years at the McCormick. Amongthe favorable aspects were the wonderful views acrossthe city from the upper floors. During a thunderstormthe vista was magnificent and enthralling, as spidersspun their webs on the window frames outside, andthe city was garishly illuminated by shards of staticthat split the evening skies. During the rush hours wecould look down pityingly on the motorists queuingto wrestle with the traffic in the Loop.

Equally good news was also the revival of a setprogram of formal presentations, rather than loosediscussion groups. The argument against the lectureis simple: research had shown that people don’t al-ways retain much from a straight talk. On that basis,there was a fashion for abandoning lectures altogether.There still is. But that isn’t sensible. The reason thatpeople do not always retain information and ideas af-ter a lecture is because many lectures are, simply, notmemorable. There is no reason to abandon them alto-gether: what we need to do is ensure that they are ofthe right quality. Good lectures live on in our lives.Many of our interests as adults stem from presenta-tions by school teachers, and the best of those shapeour destiny and remain with us throughout adult-hood. A good lecture is not only memorable, but enter-taining and diverting. The Inter/Micro organizersspend much time following up reports of good speak-ers, and encouraging them to attend. The quality ofspeakers at the meetings is always high, and this goodnews became apparent during the 1980s.

On the other hand the bad news was, first, thatwe were miles from downtown and it took a lengthylimo ride to get anywhere. Secondly, the hotel had theflimsiest of partitions separating one conference roomfrom the next. During the silences that inevitably oc-curred during the handover from one lecturer to the

next, the speaker next door could often be heard. Whenthis was a stentorian speaker in full flow it was badenough; but when the next room was hosting a reli-gious gathering, the power of the organ music andupraised voices singing fervently their praise to theLord made it impossible to hear what was being said.On occasions, Nancy Daerr had to arrange a change ofvenue to another part of the hotel where it was rathermore peaceful. Once, Walter McCrone gave a humor-ous impromptu speech saying we would do better tomove right across the town . . . in either event, it wasclear that we could not go on meeting at theMcCormick Inn.

THE MOVE DOWNTOWN

Matters came to a head when the decision wastaken to tear down the entire McCormick complex, andthe hotel block in which we convened was scheduledfor demolition. The die was cast, and henceforth Inter/Micro moved downtown. The new venue as the 1990sbegan was the Regal Knickerbocker Hotel on EastWalton. Situated just one block from the iconicHancock Building and less than that from the Magnifi-cent Mile, it was an ideal venue. Incongruously, itboasted the largest illuminated dance floor in theworld, and in the years of prohibition was rumored tohave housed a secret speakeasy and casino run by theCapone brothers. In 1952 the Knickerbocker housedSenator Richard Nixon and the Republican NationalConvention. At various times it has accommodatedPresident John F. Kennedy, Chief Justice Earl Warren –and the Rolling Stones. In the 1970s the hotel wasowned by Playboy Enterprises, and Hugh Hefner livedin an apartment on the upper floors. And then camewe lesser mortals: the microscopy people who followedin those distinguished footsteps during the banquetsof the 1990s included Mr Chuck Zona, Mr Dick Bisbingand Ms Bonnie L. Betty, all of whom are now activewith McCrone Associates out at Westmont. Othershave since retired, though their presentations are re-membered by many. Mr Martin Scott gave many in-sightful presentations, for instance, as did Mr. BaskenCraven from Lorillard. He was known to absolutelyeveryone as BJ, and most assumed that (since I was BJFord) the B stood for Brian. It was an incorrect as-sumption. In fact Basken Craven is a highly unusualname – there isn’t a single one, at the time of writing,listed anywhere on Google.

Downtown Chicago is a remarkable place, andboasted six of the ten tallest buildings in the worldduring the 1990s. There is an ambience that is courte-


ous yet informal, cultured yet casual, highly civilizedyet down to earth and direct. The meeting mirrors thecity, and the two harmonize perfectly. We were some-what spread out in the large ballroom of the RegalKnickerbocker, it must be said, and McRI began to ex-perience difficulties in securing guarantees of accom-modation one year ahead. For hotels, such advancebookings can prevent their securing a better deal fromsomeone who comes along later in the year. For theconference organizer, dates have to be settled at least ayear ahead or lecturers will be booked to speak at othervenues.

THE TALBOTT INTERLUDE

In the event, it was decided to transfer to thenearby Talbott Hotel. In so many ways, this was anexcellent venue for Inter/Micro. Designed like an En-glish club, the Talbott boasted fine paneled rooms andBritish artwork, an excellent cocktail bar, and closeproximity to restaurants and clubs. The nightlife ofRush Street was just around the corner, and the staffwere cordial and welcoming. The conference settledinto its new home, though by now there was an un-derlying concern for Walter McCrone’s health. He wassuffering from congestive heart failure, and those whoknew him well became increasingly concerned. Thenews everyone dreaded came through the media. InJuly 2002 Susan Stanberg announced on National Pub-lic Radio, “We have just learned that one of the greatdetectives has died. Walter C. McCrone . . . the micro-scope master who died in Chicago at the age of 86,solved some of the major mysteries of our time. Look-

John Shane working on the final version of his Inter/Microlecture at the rear of the meeting room at the Talbott Hotelwith young Reed Stoney.

Cloud Gate, more popularly known as The Bean, is a highlypolished sculpture in Millennium Park. It offers an unusualreflection on downtown Chicago.

Most people never think to get underneath The Bean andlook at the myriad reflections that hang tantalizingly above.It is a photographer’s (and mathematician’s) delight.

83

ing into his microscope, Walter McCrone made judg-ments about the authenticity of the shroud of Turin,the cause of Beethoven’s death, the value of so-calledpriceless paintings.”

Those who attended Inter/Micro found it hard tograsp this news, inevitable as it was. Walter had al-ways embodied exuberant good health and it seemedhard to imagine any pathology that could presume tochange all that. And there were even those who saidthat – with Walter gone – the meeting would passaway too. John Shane, who could be found finalizinghis presentation on a laptop, crammed at the back ofthe meeting room at the Talbott Hotel, was amongthose who claimed that the end of the meeting wasinevitable.

Of course it wasn’t! The conference was notWalter’s private vanity, or a personal interest. Inter/Micro owed its development to Walter McCrone’s in-sights, but it was something he started; not somethinghe had personally to sustain. In the years that followed,numbers attending began to increase, just as the aver-age delegates started to get younger. Gary Laughlinand I often commented, back in the McCormick days,on the high proportion of eminences grises compared tothe eminences brunes that we had observed in the audi-ence. The gray hairs of older delegates were always inthe majority.

But not any more. Younger delegates were start-ing to attend in ever-increasing numbers. Seated atthe back of this year’s lecture room, we could easilysee a minority of gray heads and (even though Gary

did suggest that this could also be correlated with theincreasing sales of hair-dyes) everyone could see howmuch younger our delegates have become. Their sheernumbers started to force us out of our accommoda-tion. For all its charm, the Talbott clearly couldn’t cope.Lecturers were crammed in the end of the meetingroom, delegates who arrived late had to stand or tryto secure a chair at the rear. Microscopists who hadbeen spread out in the Knickerbocker were jammedtight in the new premises, and it was clear that some-where more accommodating would be required.

RETURN TO THE KNICKERBOCKER HOTEL

The solution, difficult to find as it seemed at first,was staring everyone in the face. We needed to returnto our familiar quarters in the Knickerbocker. By nowthe hotel was under new ownership, and was knownas the Millennium Knickerbocker. Much of it had beenrefurbished, the cocktail lounge emerging as a freshand luxurious club-room, complete with the woodenpanels. All the bedrooms and suites were being rede-signed, and the building was re-emerging in a newguise – but rich in the resonances of earlier eras. Theorganizers at McRI were able to secure a suitable agree-ment with the management, and in recent years theconference has been back on familiar ground. If accept-able contracts can be negotiated, then Inter/Micro willcontinue to be based there in the future.

After the main conference, some of the delegatesretire to the McRI laboratories for an intensive hands-

The author at the annual mixer with English-born Canadianmicroscopist Eric Chatfield, a world authority on asbestos,and Sebastian Sparenga from the McCrone ResearchInstitute.

Celebrating the age-old harnessing of Saccharomycescerevisiae with Chris Vandertuuk, Reuben Nieblas, theauthor, Chuck Zona and Dave Wiley.


Tanya Dulaney from San Diego, California, spoke at Inter/Micro 2008 on her Police Department’s nuclear fast redstaining of DNA-bearing hair roots.

While award-winning Australian micrographer Dr. JeremyPickett-Heaps delivers the learned commentary, the authorprovides some live micro-organisms for their Inter/Microcourse at McRI.

on course. Learning about Hoffman Modulation Con-trast is one thing; experiencing a one-day course givenby Professor Bob Hoffman in person is something infi-nitely more memorable! Last year we had an inspir-ing instruction to a lifetime working with aquatic mi-croorganisms from Dr. Jeremy Pickett-Heaps. We havehad the inspirational Walter Rantanen exuberantlyintroducing us to the microanatomy of wood, and Dr.Steven E. Ruzin fresh from Berkeley with a hands-onlesson in the antibody staining of living cells. Theseare uniquely informative courses, full of insights andrich in learning. The flavorsome lunchtime pizza thatthey serve on the Thursday is an added bonus . . .

And thus we arrive at the present day. For thefirst time, the Monday evening event was held afloat,aboard the M/V Celebration. It proved to be a timelyinnovation, and everyone enjoyed the change of venue.Navy Pier is within walking distance of the hotel, andso are so many of the city’s major attractions. The his-toric Water Tower is just a few minutes’ walk awayfrom the hotel, and the shopping and libraries rubshoulders with the parks and museums nearby. Forthe diversion of delegates in the evening are jazz andblues clubs, piano bars and fine restaurants. Inter/Mi-cro has a unique place in the microscopists’ calendar,and nestling in downtown Chicago is the perfect placefor us to convene.

FUTURE PROSPECTS

We can look forward to future years knowing thatwe have a sound and solid history on which to build.The speakers at the 2008 conference include many whowork at McRI, and what a superbly professional teamthey are. Ms. Meggan King (currently taking on therôle of Vice-President of SMSI) spoke at the conferenceon her work on archaeology and the microscope, Ms.Kelly Brinsko on her studies of eco-friendly fibers, withMr. Sebastian Sparenga on the microscopy of hay clin-ker. They all gave excellent, well illustrated presenta-tions on their work – lectures by successful young sci-entists that point the way ahead for Inter/Micro. Dr.Chris Palenik now follows his father Skip, bringing anew generation of forensic specialists to the meeting;and Ms. Lauren Logan is such an excellent conferencecoordinator who provides the exact blend of a gra-cious yet proactive approach with the broad range ofability that the conference demands.

One unusual feature of the strong social ambienceof the conference is the way that speakers are preparedfor their talks. Everyone is invited to join the hosts at ameal prior to their session (breakfast for the morning

speakers, lunch for those speaking each afternoon).Also in attendance is the staff member who’s handlingI.T. – so speakers can load their presentations on to theconference computer, meet each other, rehearse the de-tails and settle down for a chat with the session chair-man and organizers. These are leisurely and informa-tive gatherings, with good food and excellent company.

Although symposium proceedings are widelypublished, I have long believed that it would be farmore revealing to publish the informal discussions ata meeting. Proceedings of what was said in the barwould be much more fascinating. So would be the in-terchange of ideas and information at an Inter/Micro

85

In full flow, like a galleon sailing at speed, Walter Rantanendelivers a passionate and well-informed workshop on woodmicro-anatomy for the Inter/Micro delegates.

speakers’ meal. In 2008, for instance, one speaker atlunch mentioned a question over asbestos. Anotherresponded by mentioning the world authority at theconference, Eric Chatfeld, who would have exactly theanswer. A third said that his asbestos problem hadcentered on the presence of asbestos as filler in heavilypigmented paint; a fourth leant forward to say that itwas her company that made the paint pigments . . .

This informal cross-fertilization is the hallmark ofInter/Micro. The conference has welcomed many of thegreatest names in microscopy. Jan Hinsch is one of themost knowledgable and experienced, having workedfor decades with Leitz, and then with LeicaMicrosystems. Cathy Cargille, and others from theCargille Laboratories, have been with us on many oc-casions, and Cargille regularly sponsors the confer-ence and gives generously to the mid-week auction.Now, with the new horizon beckoning, and a freshgeneration of younger scientists registering in increas-ing numbers each year, this learned yet welcomingconference has a bright future beckoning. It is difficultto believe that Inter/Micro began as a brave, pioneer-ing microscopy conference sixty years ago. It is harderstill to grasp that Lucy McCrone continues to devoteherself to the conference in any way she can, with a

sparkle and brightness that few can match. GaryLaughlin, once the new boy at McRI, is now the Presi-dent and Executive Director of this uniquely success-ful not-for-profit research and teaching institute. Withits young and forward-looking staff, McRI looks posi-tively towards the future of Inter/Micro. We can allshare their sense of excitement, and join with them inthe enticing meetings that lie ahead.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Annual summaries of Inter/Micro symposiaappear annually in The Microscope.

Grateful thanks are extended to Lucy McCrone forher reminiscences on the organization of early Inter/Micro meetings.

Photographs up to 1990 are from the McCroneResearch Institute archives and were researched byGary Laughlin and Lauren Logan.

Later images are from the author’s personalcollection of photographs.

REFERENCES

1. McCrone, Walter & Tufts, Charles (1948)cyclostyled announcement of a ‘symposium on elec-tron and light microscopy’, March 29, Armour ResearchFoundation [and] Illinois Institute of Technology; also‘Abstracts of Lectures’ (1949), ibid, in the McCroneResearch Institute archive.

2. Rochow, Theodore (1949) letter to W.C. McCroneand C.F. Tufts from the Cyanamid company in the McRIarchive, July 26.

3. McCrone, Walter (1966) RMS-Chicago-66, TheMicroscope 14: 239-245.

4. Stewart, Ian (1970) Inter/Micro-70, The Microscope18: 319-323.

5. McCrone, Walter (1966) Inter/Micro-71, The Mi-croscope 19: 415-421.

6. Nichols, Gary (1981) Inter/Micro-81, interna-tional symposium on microscopy and x-ray diffrac-tion, Physics in Technology 12: 275-276.

7. Teetsov, Anna (1998) A reminiscence of Inter/Mi-cro at Cambridge, England, 1973, Micro-Notes: 7-11,August.

inter micro – the first 60 years - mccrone research institute - the... · 2018-03-01 · 67 inter...

Documents