The microscope was invented around 1600. Its development progressed rather slowly until about 1830 when fresh ideas about lens design were applied to microscopes. In the next 50 years the microscope’s ability to show fine detail was improved at least five fold, which caused much excitement. During this era, the New York Microscopical Society (NYMS) was founded in 1877, at and by leaders of the American Museum of Natural History.
A collegial mix of scientists and amateurs, our members have from the beginning hailed from the broad New York City metropolitan region and far beyond. Our common purpose is the promotion of all theoretical and practical phases of microscopy, for professional reasons and for pleasure.
At irregular intervals NYMS honors persons who have demonstrated extraordinary merit as microscopists, physicists, originators of microanalytical technologies, or teachers, with our Ernst Abbe Award.
Many things have changed since NYMS’ late 19 c beginnings, but our goals are still the same. The Society hosts specialist speakers once monthly September – May, either at our Clifton HQ, or at prestigious venues in NYC. We also offer our Members and the interested public technical courses and workshops in applied microscopy, relevant optical theory, and related sciences and technologies. We conduct microscopy workshops for children and families, often at schools and in parks, and in collaboration with collegial scientific societies and public agencies. We arrange field trips from time to time. Please see our Events page for our current and future schedule, and for dates, visuals, and sometimes topical texts, from prior events.
For about six decades NYMS met in a suite of rooms the Society had furnished and equipped inside the American Museum of Natural History. In the 1990s the Museum ended such collegial arrangements with its few small affiliated scientific societies, and NYMS relocated: first to Paterson, NJ, then to one of our long-ago NYMS Presidents’ historic home, The Evergreens in Montclair, NJ. Our current fully owned premises is at One Prospect Village Plaza, aka 66 Mt Prospect Avenue, in Clifton, NJ. Here many and varied instrumental workstations serve our teaching and investigative work, and there is a fully equipped mechanical workshop for instrument maintenance, assembly, and even creation/building. Our excellent, internet-enabled facility is easily reached by public transportation:
Over almost 150 years, the Society has collected a trove of prized possessions, so we curate an outstanding and catalogued library of microscopy, many exemplary and functional 19c and 20c instruments, components and accessories, a large collection of historic and modern prepared microscope slides, and a great variety of unmounted specimens. The brass of about 30 19-20 c fully functional antique microscopes gleams on permanent display.
All microscopical resources at NYMS’ headquarters are accessible for Members’ use during meetings, and by appointment through our Board of Managers.