Microscopy History Resources

Web Articles

• American Artifacts: Scientific, Medical and Mechanical Antiques - An online auction that features a nice catalog where each item is described---complete with a page on the history and photos. Many unusual and old microscopes are offered for sale.
• ARS Machina.com - A well-conceived Website dedicated to the "art of the machine". The site features photographs and information about antique microscopes and their makers. Also included is a gallery of selected photomicrographs made with the antique microscopes. Many of the microscopes described are available for sale.
• Brian J. Ford's History of the Microscope - An introduction to the history of the microscope with special emphasis on Leeuwenhoek's specimens and microscopes.
• Gemmary's Antique Scientific Instrument Forum and Rare Books - A bulletin board for information on antique scientific instruments. This is a very nice Website, but the background makes the text difficult to read.
• The Golub Collection - A selection of historically significant antique microscopes from the 18th and 19th centuries generously donated to the University of California, Berkeley by Orville J. Golub and his wife Ellina Marx Golub.
• Robert Hooke (1635-1703) - A biography of the British scientist Robert Hooke is presented by the University of California (Berkeley) Museum of Paleontology.
• Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) - Another biography from the University of California (Berkeley) Museum of Paleontology. This site reviews a short history of the famous seventeenth-century Dutch microscopist.
• Antoni van Leeuwenhoek: BBC Online - Produced by the BBC Online Education division, this biography details many of the events surrounding van Leeuwenhoek's discoveries in optical microscopy.
• Leeuwenhoek Microscope Replicas - Microscopist and scientific instrument maker Al Shinn presents detailed "do-it-yourself" instructions on the construction of the Leeuwenhoek microscope. For those who are not mechanically inclined, Shinn also sells very nice completely assembled replicas of these famous microscopes.
• Museum of History and Science - The Museum of the History of Science houses an unrivalled collection of historic scientific instruments in the world's oldest surviving purpose-built museum building, the Old Ashmolean on Broad Street, Oxford. A large number of microscopes and related scientific instruments are part of the collection.
• Museum of Optical Instruments - A German Website dedicated to the history of scientific instrumentation, which contains a thorough section reviewing optical microscopy. Included are a nice collection of photographs featuring the microscopes as well as information about their makers and history.
• Online Microscopes - Moody Medical Library's collection of historical microscopes. Presented by the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas.
• Taking a Photomicrograph in 1904 - A detailed treatise on photomicrography at the turn of the century. Brought to you by the scientists at Microscopy UK.