Introduction

Mathematical Biographies

Background Information

• Which colleges admitted women before 1900?
• Which colleges awarded degrees to women before 1900?
• Rise of Women's Colleges and their role in awarding degrees to women

Patterns Identified

• Colleges attended
  • Undergraduate study at a women's college
  • Graduate study at the University of Göttingen
• Employment
• Influence of individuals on women's progress in mathematics
• Charlotte Angas Scott
• Christine Ladd-Franklin

Conclusion

Works Cited

Grace Andrews (May 30, 1869 - July 27, 1951)

• Wellesley, BS, 1890
• Columbia, AM, 1899
• Columbia, Ph.D., 1901
• Andrews was an assistant in Mathematics at Columbia from 1901-1902, then worked as an Assistant Treasurer at Wesleyan University from 1903-1926 (Siegel and Finley 216).

• Vassar, AB, 1881
• Johns Hopkins, no degree, 1890-1892
• Yale, Ph.D., 1895
• Barnum was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics at Yale. Her dissertation was titled "Functions having lines or surfaces of discontinuity." Barnum was an instructor at Smith College before beginning her graduate work. After her graduation from Yale, Barnum was a mathematics instructor at Carleton College from 1896 to 1898. Between 1898 and 1901 she worked in a variety of positions in the field of applied mathematics. Between 1901 and 1908, she worked for the U.S. Naval Observatory and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, using her interests in discontinuous surface functions to study tides and currents. Barnum worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1908-1913, and between 1914 and 1926 she worked at Yale University, in a variety of positions, including teaching mathematics. Barnum joined the American Mathematical Society in 1894 and was one of earliest members of that organization (Siegel and Finley 213; Riddle n.d., Charlotte Barnum, n.p.).

• University of Toronto, BA, 1895
• University of Toronto, MA, 1902
• Bryn Mawr, Ph.D., 1914
• After her undergraduate and masters work, Cummings studied at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago. She then taught in Canada for one year (1901), and became a Mathematics Instructor at Vassar, where she remained from 1902-1936. She returned to Bryn Mawr, completing her graduate work in 1914. Cummings was appointed a Full Professor at Vassar in 1927. Her research interests include geometry and combinatorial analysis (Siegel and Finley 217-218).

• Vassar, 1866-1867
• Swarthmore, Honorary Ph.D., 1888
• Cunningham spent her entire teaching career at Swarthmore College (1869-1906), serving there since its founding. She continued to increase her knowledge of mathematics and astronomy by studying during the summers at Harvard, Princeton, Newnham College at Cambridge, and Williams College. She was the Head of the Astronomy & Mathematics departments from 1869-1906, also assisting in founding the two departments. She became a full Professor at Swarthmore in 1874. She became a member of the New York Mathematical Society in 1891 (the precursor to the American Mathematical Society) (Siegel and Finley 210-211; Riddle n.d., Susan Jane Cunningham, n.p.).

• Smith College, 1894
• Yale, Ph.D., Mathematics, 1896
• Dickerman was the second woman at Yale to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics. Her dissertation was titled "Curves of the first, and second degree in X, Y, Z, where XYZ are conics having two points in common." (Riddle, n.d., Elizabeth Dickerman, n.p.)

• University of Kansas, BA, date unknown
• University of Kansas, MS, date unknown
• Cornell University, Ph.D., Mathematics, 1894
• Her dissertation was titled "Concomitant binary forms in terms of the roots." Fitch was awarded the Association of Collegiate Alumnae European Fellowship to study mathematics at the University of Göttingen, where she stayed from 1894-1896. Upon her return, she became a full professor at Wells College. She was elected to the American Mathematical Society in 1897 (Riddle, n.d., Annie MacKinnon Fitch, n.p.).

• Indiana State Normal, AB, 1880
• University of Michigan, BA, 1890
• University of Berlin, no degree, 1891-1892
• Sorbonne, no degree, 1892
• Bryn Mawr, Ph.D., Mathematics, 1896
• Gentry attended preparatory schools beginning in 1880, before her study at the University of Michigan. She was the second person to receive the Association of College Alumnae European Fellowship, which she used for study at the University of Berlin. S he was not allowed to officially enroll there, so she was unable to earn a degree. She spent one semester studying in Paris, at the Sorbonne. She returned to study with Charlotte Scott at Bryn Mawr, where her dissertation was titled "On the forms of plane quartic curves." In 1896, she became the first faculty member at Vassar to have earned a Ph.D. She stayed at Vassar until 1902, after being appointed Associate Professor in 1900. Gentry was the Associate Principal & Head of the Mathematics Department at a private school in Pittsburgh between 1902-1905. Gentry became a member of the American Mathematical Society in 1894 (Riddle, n.d., Ruth Gentry, n.p.).

• Oberlin College, AB, 1878
• Hayes became a mathematics teacher at Wellesley College, where she remained from 1879-1916. In 1888 she became Professor & Head of the Mathematics Department, and in 1897 became the Head and sole professor in the new Department of Applied Mathematics. Her research interests included Advanced Algebra, Trigonometry, and Applied Calculus. She joined the American Mathematical Society in 1891, when it was still the New York Mathematical Society (Riddle, n.d., Ellen Amanda Hayes, n.p.).

• Columbia, AB, 1896
• Columbia, AM, 1897
• After her graduation from Columbia University in 1897, Hymes became a private mathematics tutor (Siegel and Finley 219)

• Vassar, none, 1866-1867, 1868-1870
• Harvard, no degree, 1872
• Vassar, LL.D., honorary, 1887
• Johns Hopkins, no degree, 1878-1882
• Johns Hopkins, Ph.D., 1926
• Ladd-Franklin taught in Washington, Pennsylvania during 1871, after studying at Vassar College. After this teaching post, she began study at Harvard University. Finally, she applied for admission to a graduate program at Johns Hopkins in 1878, even though they did not accept women as students. Professor J.J. Sylvester, a professor at Johns Hopkins who was familiar with her many contributions to mathematical publications, pushed the faculty at Johns Hopkins to admit her as a special status student, and to grant her a fellowship to study with him. She left Johns Hopkins in 1882 without a Ph.D., despite publishing numerous articles in the area of symbolic logic, and despite her dissertation being published in "Studies in Logic by Members of the Johns Hopkins University" in 1883. Her honorary degree from Vassar was only honorary degree that college ever bestowed. After a long wait of 44 years, Johns Hopkins finally acknowledged her study, attendance, and merit by awarding her Ph.D. Ladd-Franklin's research interests included symbolic logic and physiological optics. (Rossiter 1982; Riddle, n.d., Annie MacKinnon Fitch, n.p.)

• Bryn Mawr, BA, 1894
• University of Göttingen, no degree, 1897-1898
• Bryn Mawr, Ph.D., 1901
• Martin studied with Charlotte Angas Scott at Bryn Mawr, and was one of several women from Bryn Mawr to attend the University of Göttingen. Martin was awarded the Mary E. Garrett Fellowship to study at Göttingen from 1897-1898. She returned t o Bryn Mawr to complete her Ph.D., where her dissertation was titled "On the primitive substitution groups of degree fifteen and the primitive substitution groups of degree eighteen." After graduation, she became an Instructor, and a member of the Mathema tics Faculty at Mt. Holyoke College, where she remained until her retirement in 1935. She became an Associate Professor in 1911, and was promoted to full Professor & Chair of the Mathematics Department in 1925. She lived on the campus as a resident facult y member (Siegel and Finley 217; Riddle, n.d., Emilie Norton Martin, n.p.).

• Wellesley, BA, 1886
• University of Chicago & University of Göttingen, no degree, 1893-1903
• Yale, Ph.D., 1903
• After earning a Bachelor's degree at Wellesley, Merrill taught for five years (1887-1891) at the Classon School for Girls in New York. She then was hired by the Walnut Lane School in Germantown, Philadelphia, where she stayed from 1891-1893, before re turning to Wellesley as an Instructor in 1893. After studying at the University of Chicago & the University of Göttingen, Merrill attended Yale University to finish her Ph.D. After completing her Ph.D., she was appointed as a full Professor at Welles ley, and was the Chair of the Mathematics Department from 1915 or 1916 until her retirement in 1932. Her research interest was primarily Algebra, and she published two textbooks on that subject (Siegel and Finley 214-215; Riddle, n.d., Helen Abbot Merrill , n.p.).

• Columbia, Ph.D., 1886
• Merrill was the first woman to receive Ph.D. in mathematics in the United States (Riddle, n.d., Winifred Edgerton Merrill, n.p.).

• Boston University, BA, 1886
• Cornell University, MS, 1889
• Cornell University, Ph.D., Mathematics, 1893
• Metcalf was the second woman in the United States to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics. Her dissertation was titled "Geometric duality in spaces" (Riddle, n.d., Ida Metcalf, n.p.).

• University of Wisconsin, AB, 1889
• Bryn Mawr, degree unknown, 1891-1892
• University of Chicago, no degree, 1892-1893
• University of Göttingen, Ph.D., Mathematics, 1897
• Newson was a "Fellow by courtesy" at the University of Chicago from 1892-1893, after which she received a fellowship from the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, which she used to study at the University of Göttingen. In 1897, she became the first woman from the United States to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics at a European University. After receiving her Ph.D., she taught high school mathematics in St. Joseph Missouri, and also taught mathematics at Kansas State Agriculture College and at Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas. Newson's research interest was differential equations (Siegel and Finley 216; Riddle, n.d., Mary Frances Winston Newson, n.p.).

• Earlham College, Ph.B., 1893
• University of Michigan, Ph.M., 1896,
• University of Göttingen, no degree, 1900-1901
• Paine was a fellow of the Woman's Education Association, and used her fellowship to study at the University of Göttingen from 1900-1901. After her return from Germany, she became a faculty member at Mt. Holyoke College, where she stayed from 1902-1911. She married Robert Paine in 1911, and in 1914 returned to academia when she was appointed Head of the Extension department of mathematics at the University of California Berkeley. Her area of interest was the History and Philosophy of Mathematics (Siegel and Finley 218).

• Cornell University, Ph.B., 1890
• University of Göttingen, no degree, 1898
• After her graduation from Cornell University, Palmie became a fellow there, where she remained until her appointment to the faculty of the Western Reserve University College for women in 1892. She became a full professor there in 1895. In 1897, she be came a member of the American Mathematical Association, and in 1898, went to Germany to study at the University of Göttingen. She retired from Western Reserve University in 1928 (Siegel and Finley 214).

• Smith College, AB, 1886
• Yale, Ph.D., 1899
• Peirce's dissertation was titled "On Chain-Differentiants of a ternary quantic" (Riddle, n.d., Leona May Peirce, n.p.).

• University of Wisconsin, AB, 1897
• University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ph.D., 1901
• Pengra was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hers was only the third Ph.D. to be awarded from their mathematics department. Her dissertation was titled "On the conformal representation of plane curves, particularly for cases p=4, 5, and 6". After graduation, she taught high school in Fox Lake, Wisconsin, Spartin, Wisconsin, and Elgin, Illinois. In 1904, she married a fellow mathematician, Arthur Robert Crathorne and moved with him to Germany so he could finish his Ph.D., which he earned from the University of Göttingen in 1907. They moved to Brodhead Wisconsin, then Champaign, Illinois, where they remained. She apparently never returned to teaching (Riddle, n.d., Charlotte Elvira Pengra, n.p.).

• Guilford College, BS, 1892
• Bryn Mawr, AB, date unknown
• Bryn Mawr, Ph.D., date unknown
• Ragsdale's first two degrees were in physics, but as a graduate student at Bryn Mawr she studied mathematics with Charlotte Scott. Ragsdale's dissertation was published in 1906 by the American Journal of Mathematics, and was titled "On the arrangement of the real branches of plane algebraic curves." After one year of study as a graduate student at Bryn Mawr, she attended the University of Göttingen, where she was able to study with Felix Klein and David Hilbert, pre-eminent mathematicians. During one of the years she studied there, she was with two other female mathematics students from Bryn Mawr.
• After returning from Germany, she taught in Baltimore for three years before she returned to Bryn Mawr on scholarship. After graduation, she eventually became a member of the faculty at the Woman's College in Greensboro, North Carolina (now the University of North Carolina). She taught there from 1911 until her retirement in 1928, when she needed to care for her ailing mother. She was Head of the Mathematics Department from 1926-1928. She is best known for her thesis, in which she proposed the "Ragsdale Conjecture," which "provided an upper bound on the number of topological circles of a certain type" (De Loera and Wicklin n.p.).

• Northwestern University, AB, 1892
• Yale University, no degree, dates unknown
• University of Chicago, AM, 1896
• After her graduation from the University of Chicago, Schottenfels taught at several Chicago grammar and high schools between 1896-1900. In 1901, she became an Instructor at the New York Normal College. In 1913, she reported being the Chair of the Math ematics Department at Adrian College in Michigan (Siegel and Finley 216-217).

• Smith College, undergraduate, date unknown
• Yale, Ph.D., 1901
• Studied at University of Göttingen, 1908-1909
• After receiving her undergraduate degree at Smith College and attending Yale University as fellow for one year, Wood taught at Mt. Holyoke, then returned to Yale to complete her studies. In 1901, she became in Instructor at Smith College. In 1908 and 1909, she studied at the University of Göttingen, and upon her return to Smith College in 1909, she became a full professor. Wood's primary area of research was non-Euclidian Geometry (Siegel and Finley 218-219).

"gaining access to graduate education, was relatively easy ... permission could be granted by almost any friendly professor. ... being awarded a degree was ... a formal, almost legal proceeding [involving] ... the professors and the department ... [and the] president and board of trustees, many of whom long refused to award higher degrees to women or even acknowledge their presence on campus" (Rossiter 1982, 31).

The most extreme example is that of Christine Ladd-Franklin, who completed her thesis in 1882 at Johns Hopkins University, but was not awarded her Ph.D. until 1926. Ladd-Franklin was a frequent contributor to the "Mathematical Questions" section of the London publication Educational Times. Professor J. J. Sylvester of Johns Hopkins knew of her contributions and "urged that she be admitted on a special status and that she be granted a fellowship" (Phan n.p.). Her thesis was published in 1882 in the publication Studies in Logic by Members of the Johns Hopkins University, but at that time, Johns Hopkins University did not allow women to earn Ph.D.'s (Phan n.p.). It was not until 1893 that "the [Johns Hopkins] University awarded its first doctorate to a woman, not retroactively to Ladd-Franklin, however, but to the less controversial Florence Bascom, in geology" (Rossiter 1982, 45). Although awarding a doctorate to Bascom, it wasn't until 1907 that the Johns Hopkins Graduate School officially accepted women as graduate students (Rossiter 1982, 46).

In the early 1890s, six well-known graduate schools in the United States (Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Brown University, Stanford University and the University of Chicago, suddenly decided to admit women as students, equal to their male students, and also to begin to award Ph.D. degrees when appropriate. Yale and Pennsylvania allowed women into graduate school, but would not admit them as undergraduates and Columbia and Brown admitted women as graduate students, but allowed them as undergraduates only at a "coordinate college for women undergraduates." Stanford and Chicago, however, allowed women full access to all aspects of higher education (Rossiter 1982, 34). "Over one-half of the doctorates awarded to women from 1877 to 1900 were given by just four universities: Yale (36), [University of] Chicago (29), Cornell (28), and New York University (20)" (Rossiter 1982, 35).

Rise of Women's Colleges and their role in awarding degrees to women

Whereas the more traditional four-year colleges felt that admitting women as students was heresy, women's colleges were accepted into society because they were promoted originally to make women better wives and mothers. Emma Hart Willard convinced cons ervative members of society that education for women would positively reflect upon their life skills and morality. "She was the first of several pioneers who, despite their own lack of education, did much to increase the opportunities and raise the level of education available to the next generation of American women" (Rossiter 1982, 4). Willard succeeded because she stated the case for women's education using many of the existing sexist notions about women's roles in society. She argued that women needed education to raise sons that were moral and had character. Many women were not doing a "good job" of raising their sons, so having an education would help them. By using these arguments, she convinced the conservative members of the government to support women's education, at least in the abstract. It is unfortunate she had to use such means to help the case for women's education.

Others had a more direct influence on women's education. For example, Mary Lyon founded the Mount Holyoke Seminary for women. It later became Mt. Holyoke College, and employed many female faculty members as well as educating dozens of women (Rossiter 1982, 7-9). In addition to Mount Holyoke, the founding of Vassar College by Matthew Vassar, a forward thinking individual who felt that women should be educated, had a large impact on women's education. "Although Oberlin College had been coeducational since its founding in 1833 ... the real impetus toward the full collegiate education of women came with the opening of Vassar College ... in 1865. By 1870 many of the state universities ... were also accepting their first women students" (Rossiter 1982, 9).

Furthermore, other women's colleges were formed after 1870, and played an important part in women's education. They include the following: Smith College, 1871; Wellesley College, 1875; Bryn Mawr College, 1885; Baltimore College for Women (Goucher Colle ge), 1885; Mount Holyoke Seminary (later College), 1888; and Barnard College (at Columbia University), 1889 (Rossiter 1982, 10)

One of the other important features about the rise of women's colleges was their employment of female mathematicians as faculty members. In general, female scientists and mathematicians were most often employed in the academic community rather than ind ustry. At women's colleges, a female mathematician was more likely to become a department head than if she worked at a traditional college (Rossiter 1982).

In addition, Ladd-Franklin was a long-time and constant proponent of women's education. She "had never intended to stop her campaign with the opening of the German universities to American women. All along she had planned to use the publicity about the women's success abroad to create additional pressure on lagging institutions back home...Harvard and The Johns Hopkins were particularly susceptible targets for this tactic since they prided themselves on their similarities to the German universities" (R ossiter 1982, 43-44).

Although the period from 1866 to 1900 was only a beginning point for women in mathematics, it is helpful to examine the role of the first women earning Ph.D.'s in mathematics in the United States. The influence not only of their experiences in studying at women's colleges as undergraduates, and occasionally as graduates, but also the influence of strong women such as Charlotte Angas Scott and Christine Ladd-Franklin increased the mathematical possibilities for women to come in later generations. Furthermore, the availability of jobs in women's colleges for these early female mathematicians also increased their chances of becoming integrated into the scientific community.

Chaplin, Stephanie. April 1995. "Charlotte Angas Scott." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 5 pars. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 20, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/scott.htm

David Hilbert: 10 pars. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 21, 1997. Available: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Hilbert.html, December 1996.

De Loera, Jesús, and Frederick J. Wicklin. n.d. "Virginia Ragsdale." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 13 pars. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/ragsdale.htm

Kenschaft, Patricia C. "Women in Mathematics around 1900." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7 (1982): 906-909.

Phan, An. n.d. "Christine Ladd-Franklin." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 5 pars. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/ladd.htm

Riddle, Larry. n.d. "Annie MacKinnon Fitch." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 1 par. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/fitch.htm

—. n.d. "Charlotte Barnum." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 2 pars. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/barnum.htm

—. n.d. "Charlotte Elvira Pengra." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 3 pars. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/pengra.htm

—. n.d. "Elizabeth Dickerman." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 1 par. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/dicker.htm

—. n.d. "Ellen Amanda Hayes." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 2 pars. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/hayes.htm

—. n.d. "Emilie Norton Martin." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 1 par. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/martin.htm

—. n.d. "Helen Abbot Merrill." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 2 pars. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/hmerrill.htm

—. n.d. "Ida Metcalf." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 1 par. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/metcalf.htm

—. n.d. "Leona May Peirce." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 1 pars. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/peirce.htm

—. n.d. "Mary Frances Winston Newson." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 1 par. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/newson.htm

—. n.d. "Ruth Gentry." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 1 par. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/gentry.htm

—. n.d. "Susan Jane Cunningham." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 1 par. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/cunning.htm

—. n.d. "Winifred Edgerton Merrill." Biographies of Women Mathematicians Web Site: 1 par. [World Wide Web Document]. Accessed August 9, 1997. Available: http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/merrill.htm

Rossiter, Margaret W. 1974. "Women Scientists in America before 1920." American Scientist 62: 312-323.

Rossiter, Margaret W. 1982. Women Scientists in America : Struggles and Strategies to 1940. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rothman, Patricia. 1988. "Genius, Gender and culture: women Mathematicians of the Nineteenth Century." Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 13: 64-72.

Siegel, Patricia Joan, and Kay Thomas Finley. 1985. Women in the Scientific Search: an American Bio-bibliography, 1724-1979. Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, Inc.

---

Copyright ©1997 Shelby L. Eaton
Last updated December 1, 1997