Marshall William Cronyn papers

Marshall William Cronyn was born in 1919 in Oakland, California, and grew up in Oregon. He attended Reed College graduating in 1940 with a BA in chemistry. He married Vesta Elizabeth (Betty) Wetterborg, ’41, and they attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arber. Marsh earned a PhD in organic chemistry in 1944, focusing on medicinal synthesis which continued as his primary research field throughout his career. Between 1946 and 1952 he was a postdoctoral fellow and then an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1952, he was hired at Reed College as an associate professor of chemistry where he stayed until 1989, becoming a Professor Emeritus. Cronyn served as the Provost from 1982 until 1988, and as Vice President in 1983 under President Paul Bragdon.

Cronyn was an excellent and much-beloved chemistry professor on the Reed campus, teaching through the Socratic Method and taking time with every student. He was active in the American Chemical Society and wrote and carried out many successful grant-supported projects, particularly in the pursuit of antimalarials and anti-carcinogenics. He also created a “patented proposal to store elemental hydrogen fuel by its reversible adsorption in liquid organics.” Cronyn undertook research in lignin and other environmental topics. He was chemistry department chair from 1966 through 1973.

Active and with a broad range of friends in Portland, he served on study committees for the City Club of Portland and was a member on the board of the Oregon Research and Technology Development Corporation. He died on December 30, 2007, from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

[Based on the In Memoriam obituary published by the Reed magazine, May 2008.]