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A Mathematical Snapshot: The University of Rochester, 1933–1936

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Notes

  1. Rochester made a series of research-oriented science hires between 1930 and 1934: Brian O’Brien in optical physics in 1930, Lee DuBridge in nuclear physics in 1933, and Benjamin Willier in experimental biology in 1934, among others [6, Ch. 26, Sect. III].

  2. See [12] and [6, Ch. 26, Sect. III] and compare [10]. A copy of this same lengthy letter is also preserved in [14].

  3. Unless otherwise noted, the biographical details that follow in this and the next two paragraphs were gleaned from the entries in [2] as well as from various catalogues at the University of Rochester.

  4. The undergraduate courses could be augmented by individual reading courses for juniors and seniors. See [1, pp. 182–185] and [6, Ch. 23, Sect. IV].

  5. For the quotations that appear after the colon above, see respectively [1, pp. 183 and 184–185].

  6. Price also served, 1957–1958, as president of the Mathematical Association of America.

  7. The recollections of George Seligman, professor of mathematics emeritus at Yale and Rochester class of 1950, are supported by the 1952 preliminary report issued by the National Research Council’s Division of Mathematics on the regional development of mathematical research, namely, that Rochester’s graduate program was “regarded, in some sense, as emerging,” that is, as one of the “new centers of serious and scholarly activities in mathematics” [11, p. 1] (and compare [8, pp. 417–420]).

  8. For these examples, see [8, pp.154–180].

References

  1. Bulletin of the University of Rochester: College of Arts and Science Catalogue (1935–1936).

  2. Jaques Cattell, editor. American Men of Science: A Biographical Dictionary. The Science Press and R. R. Bowker Company, 1955.

  3. Gale, Fauver, Murlin, and Fairbanks Will Retire from Faculty on July 1. Rochester Alumni-Alumnae Review 23 (May–June 1945), p. 12.

  4. Arthur Sullivan Gale and Charles William Watkeys. Elementary Functions and Applications. H. Holt and Company, 1920.

  5. Johns Hopkins University Celebration of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the University and Inauguration of Ira Remsen, LL.D., as President of the University. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1902.

  6. Arthur J. May. History of the University of Rochester. Online at https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/university-of-rochester-history.

  7. Ivan Niven. The threadbare thirties. In A Century of Mathematics in America, vol. 1, edited by Peter L. Duren et al., pp. 209–229. American Mathematical Society, 1988.

  8. Karen Hunger Parshall. The New Era in American Mathematics, 1920–1950. Princeton University Press, 2022.

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Karen Hunger Parshall and David E. Rowe. The Emergence of the American Mathematical Research Community, 1876–1900: J. J. Sylveser, Felix Klein, and E. H. Moore. American Mathematical Society and London Mathematical Society, 1994.

  10. G. Bailey Price to President Valentine, April 4, 1936, G. Bailey Price Papers, 93–372, Archives of American Mathematics, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin.

  11. The Regional Development of Mathematical Research: A Preliminary Report on a Questionnaire Sent Out to Seventy Six Colleges and Universities by the Division of Mathematics, Box 2019-192/4, William L. Duren, Jr. Papers, Archives of American Mathematics, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin.

  12. Report of the Committee on the Revision of the Rules Relating to the Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure of Teachers in the College Faculty, 28 January, 1935, G. Bailey Price Papers, 93–372, Archives of American Mathematics, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin.

  13. Robin Rider. An opportune time: Griffith C. Evans and mathematics at Berkeley. In A Century of mathematics in America, vol. 2, edited by Peter L. Duren et al., pp. 283–302. American Mathematical Society, 1989.

  14. Alan Valentine Papers, 1935/36, Special Collections, University of Rochester.

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Acknowledgments

I thank George Seligman (see footnote 7 above) for sharing with me his recollections of his undergraduate days at Rochester. My thanks also go to Melissa Mead, John M. and Barbara Keil university archivist and Rochester collections librarian, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester, for her help in locating, accessing, and reproducing items in her collection as well as to her cousin, Carol Mead, head of archives and manuscripts at the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas, Austin, and former head of the Archives of American Mathematics there, for all her archival help and friendship over the years. Figures 1 and 2 are taken from Interpres 80 (1937), p. 19; Figures 3, 4, and 5 are from Croceus 15 (1924), p. 23; Figure 6 is from the Rochester Review 17:1 (1938), p. 6. I thank Melissa Mead for permission to publish all these figures.

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  1. Departments of History and Mathematics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4137, USA

    Karen Hunger Parshall

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Parshall, K.H. A Mathematical Snapshot: The University of Rochester, 1933–1936. Math Intelligencer 45, 64–70 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-022-10256-0

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