Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

“A New Era in the Development of Our Science”: The American Mathematical Research Community, 1920-1950

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
A Delicate Balance: Global Perspectives on Innovation and Tradition in the History of Mathematics

Part of the book series: Trends in the History of Science ((TRENDSHISTORYSCIENCE))

Abstract

It was the end of August 1950 and some 2300 mathematicians had gathered from all over the world in Cambridge, Massachusetts for the eleventh International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM). An ICM had never before been held in the United States, and the American mathematical research community had a point to make.

Happy Birthday, Joe!

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Archival Sources

  • [AMS Papers]: American Mathematical Society Papers, John Hay Library, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Birkhoff]: George David Birkhoff Papers, Harvard University Archives, Pusey Library, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Moore]: R. L. Moore Papers, 1875, 1891–1975, Archives of American Mathematics, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Stone]: Marshall H. Stone Papers, John Hay Library, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Veblen]: The Papers of Oswald Veblen, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, D.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Wilder]: Raymond L. Wilder Papers, 1914–1982, Archives of American Mathematics, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

    Google Scholar 

Bibliography

  • [Anonymous 1919] Anonymous. “The National Research Council.” Science 49 (16 May, 1919): 458–462.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Anonymous 1924a] Anonymous. “Notes.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 30 (1924): 376-378.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Anonymous 1924b] Anonymous. “Sustaining Members of the Society, December, 1924.” American Mathematical Society: List of Officers and Members, 1923–1924 30 (1924): 7.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Anonymous 1925] Anonymous. “Notes.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 31 (1925): 470-475.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Anonymous 1926] Anonymous. “Sustaining Members of the Society, October, 1926.” List of Officers and Members of the American Mathematical Society 32 (1926): 9.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Anonymous 1935] Anonymous. “Geographical Distribution of Members.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 40 (1934): 50-64.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Anonymous 1942] Anonymous. “Occupational Classification of Mathematicians.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 48 (1942): 792-794.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Archibald 1938] Archibald, Raymond C. A Semicentennial History of the American Mathematical Society, 1888–1938. New York: American Mathematical Society, 1938; Reprint ed., New York: Arno Press, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Archibald et al., to appear] Archibald, Thomas; Dumbaugh, Della; and Kent, Deborah. “A Mobilized Community: Mathematicians in the United States during World War I.” In The War of Guns and Mathematics. Ed. David Aubin and Catherine Goldstein. HMATH. Providence: American Mathematical Society, to appear.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Aspray 1988] Aspray, William. “The Emergence of Princeton as a World Center for Mathematical Research, 1896–1939.” In History and Philosophy of Modern Mathematics. Ed. William Aspray and Philip Kitcher. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988, pp. 346-366.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Ayers 1939] Ayers, William L. “The September Meeting in Madison.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 45 (1939): 801-811.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Ayers 1940] Ayers, William L. “The Annual Meeting of the Society.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 47 (1941): 175-187.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Barrows 1933] Barrows, Albert L. “General Organization and Activities.” In A History of the National Research Council, 1919–1933. Washington, DC: National Research Council, 1933, pp. 7-11.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Batterson 2006] Batterson, Steve. Pursuit of Genius: Flexner, Einstein, and the Early Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study. Wellesley, MA: A K Peters, Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Brewer and Smith 1981] Brewer, James W. and Smith, Martha K. Emmy Noether: A Tribute to Her Life and Work. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Bush 1970] Bush, Vannevar. Pieces of the Action. New York: Morrow, 1970.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Cattell 1906] Cattell, James McKeen, Ed. American Men of Science: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: The Science Press, 1906.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Duren et al. 1988–1989] Duren, Peter L., et al. A Century of Matheamtics in America. 3 Vols. Providence: American Mathematical Society, 1988–1989.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Dick 1981] Dick, Auguste. Emmy Noether, 1881–1935. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Feffer 1997] Feffer, Loren Butler. “Mathematical Physics and the Planning of American Mathematics: Ideology and Institutions.” Historia Mathematica 24 (1997): 66-85.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Feffer 1998] Feffer, Loren Butler. “Oswald Veblen and the Capitalization of American Mathematics: Raising Money for Research, 1923–1928.” Isis 89 (1998): 474-497.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Fenster 2003] Fenster, Della Dumbaugh. “Funds for Mathematics: Carnegie Institution of Washington Support for Mathematics from 1902 to 1920.” Historia Mathematica 30 (2003): 195-216.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Fermi 1971] Fermi, Laura. Illustrious Immigrants: The Intellectual Migration from Europe 1930/41. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Fleming and Bailyn 1968] Fleming, Donald and Bailyn, Bernard, Ed. The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930–1960. Vol. 2. Perspectives in American History (1968).

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hart 1941] Hart, William L. “On Education for the Service.” American Mathematical Monthly 48 (1941): 353-362.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Henderson 1925] Henderson, Robert. “Life Insurance as a Social Science and as a Mathematical Problem.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 31 (1925): 227-252.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hilbert 1901] Hilbert, David. “Mathematische Probleme.” Archiv für Mathematik und Physik 1 (1901): 44-63. Trans. Mary F. Winston. “Mathematical Problems: Lecture Delivered before the International Congress of Mathematicians at Paris in 1900.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 8 (1902): 437-479.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hollcroft 1938] Hollcroft, Temple R. “The Summer Meeting in New York.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 44 (1938): 745-755.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hollcroft 1943] Hollcroft, Temple R. “The February Meeting in New York.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 49 (1943): 339-344.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Kaplan 1989] Kaplan, Wilfred. “Mathematics at the University of Michigan.” In [Duren et al. 1988–1989], 3: 179-189.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Kline 1935] Kline, John R. “The Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 41 (1935): 150-161.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Kline 1943] Kline, John R. “The Annual Meeting of the Society.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 49 (1943): 195-204.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Kohler 1991] Kohler, Robert. Partners in Science: Foundations and Natural Scientists 1900–1945. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Morse 1940] Morse, Marston. “Report of the War Preparedness Committee of the American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America at the Hanover Meeting.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 46 (1940): 711-714.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Morse 1941] Morse, Marston. “Report of the War Preparedness Committee of the American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America at the Chicago Meeting.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 47 (1941): 829-831.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Owens 1989] Owens, Larry. “Mathematicians at War: Warren Weaver and the Applied Mathematics Panel, 1942–1945.” In The History of Modern Mathematics: Vol. 2, “Institutions and Applications. Ed. David E. Rowe and John McCleary. Boston: Academic Press, 1989, pp. 287-305.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Parker 2005] Parker, John. R. L. Moore: Mathematician and Teacher. Washington, DC: The Mathematical Association of America, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Parshall 1988] Parshall, Karen Hunger. “America’s First School of Mathematical Research: James Joseph Sylvester at The Johns Hopkins University 1876– 1883.” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 38 (1988): 153-196.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Parshall 2000] Parshall, Karen Hunger. “Perspectives on American Mathematics.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 37 (2000): 381-405.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Parshall 2009] Parshall, Karen Hunger. “Marshall Stone and the Internationalization of the American Mathematical Research Community.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 46 (2009): 459-482.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Parshall 2015] Parshall, Karen Hunger. “The Stratification of the American Mathematical Community: The Mathematical Association of America and the American Mathematical Society, 1915–1925.” In A Century of Advancing Mathematics. Ed. Donald Albers, et al. Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America, 2015, to appear.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Parshall, in preparation] Parshall, Karen Hunger. “Mathematics and the Politics of Race: The Case of William Claytor (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1933),” manuscript in preparation.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Parshall and Rowe 1994] Parshall, Karen Hunger and Rowe, David E. The Emergence of the American Mathematical Research Community, 1876-1900: James Joseph Sylvester, Felix Klein, and E. H. Moore. HMATH 8. Providence: American Mathematical Society and London: London Mathematical Society, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • [President’s Research Committee 1933] President’s Research Committee on Social Trends. Recent Social Trends in the United States: Report of the President’s Research Committee on Social Trends. 2 Vols. New York and London: MacGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1933.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Princeton 1946] “The Princeton University Bicentennial Conference on the Problems of Mathematics.” In [Duren et al. 1988–1989], 2: 309-333.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Pupin 1924] Pupin, Michael. “From Chaos to Cosmos.” Scribner’s Magazine 76 (1924): 3-10.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Rees 1980] Rees, Mina. “The Mathematical Sciences and World War II.” American Mathematical Monthly 87 (1980): 607-621; Reprinted in [Duren et al. 1988–1989], 1: 275-289.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Reingold 1981] Reingold, Nathan. “Refugee Mathematicians in the U.S.A.” Annals of Science 38 (1981): 313-338; Reprinted in [Duren et al. 1988–1989], 1: 175-200.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Reid 1976] Reid, Constance. Courant in Göttingen and New York: The Story of an Improbable Mathematician. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Reingold and Reingold 1981] Reingold, Nathan and Reingold, Ida Ed. Science in America: A Documentary History 1900–1939. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Richardson 1923] Richardson, Roland G. D. “The Josiah Willard Gibbs Lectureship.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 29 (1923): 385.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Richardson 1924] Richardson, Roland G. D. “The Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Society.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 30 (1924): 199- 216.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Richardson 1926] Richardson, Roland G. D. “Report of the Secretary to the Council for the Years 1921–1925.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 32 (1926): 203-211.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Richardson 1936] Richardson, Roland G. D. “The Ph.D. Degree and Mathematical Research.” American Mathematical Monthly 43 (1936): 199-215; Reprinted in [Duren et al. 1988–1989], 2: 361-378.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Richardson et al. 1939] Richardson, Roland G. D. et al. “The Semicentennial Celebration: September 6-9, 1938.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 45 (1939): 1-30.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Richtmyer 1919] Richtmyer, F. K. “Division of Physical Sciences.” In A History of the National Research Council, 1919–1933. Washington, DC: National Research Council, 1933, pp. 12-16.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Rider 1989] Rider, Robin. “An Opportune Time: Griffith C. Evans and Mathematics at Berkeley.” In [Duren et al. 1988–1989], 2: 282-302.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Rosser 1982] Rosser, Barkley. “Mathematics and Mathematicians in World War II.” Notices of the American Mathematical Society 29 (1982): 509-515; Reprinted in [Duren et al. 1988–1989], 1: 303-309.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Rothrock 1919] Rothrock, David.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Rowe 2003] Rowe, David E. “On Projecting the Future and Assessing the Past —the 1946 Princeton Bicentennial Conference.” The Mathematical Intelligencer 25 (2003): 8-15.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Rowe 2012] Rowe, David E. “Mathematics in Wartime: Private Reflections of Clifford Truesdell.” The Mathematical Intelligencer 34 (2012): 29-39.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Semicentennial Addresses 1938] Semicentennial Addresses of the American Mathematical Society. New York: American Mathematical Society, 1938.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Siegmund-Schultze 1997] Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard. “The Emanicipation of Mathematical Research Publishing in the United States from German Dominance (1878–1945).” Historia Mathematica 24 (1997): 135-166.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Siegmund-Schultze 2001] Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard. Rockefeller and the Internationalization of Mathematics between the Two World Wars. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Siegmund-Schultze 2004] Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard. “The Ideology of Applied Mathematics within Mathematics in Germany and the U. S. until the End of World War II.” LLULL 27 (2004): 791-811.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Siegmund-Schultze 2009] Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard. Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany: Individual Fates and Global Impact. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Stewart 1948] Stewart, Irvin. Organizing Scientific Research for War: The Administrative History of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1948.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Veblen 1925] Veblen, Oswald. “Remarks on the Foundations of Geometry.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 31 (1925): 121-141.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Veblen 1952] Veblen, Oswald. “Opening Address.” Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians. 2 Vols. Providence: American Mathematical Society, 1952, 1: 124-125.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Visher 1947] Visher, Stephen Sargent. Scientists Starred 1903–1943 in “American Men of Science”: A Study of Collegiate and Doctoral Training, Birthplace, Distribution, Backgrounds, and Developmental Influences. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1947.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Wilder 1932] Wilder, Raymond L. “Point Sets in Three and Higher Dimensions and Their Investigation by Means of a Unified Analysis Situs.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 38 (1932): 649-692.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Wilder 1989] Wilder, Raymond L. “Reminiscences of Mathematics at Michigan.” In [Duren et al. 1988–1989], 3: 191-204.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of History and Mathematics, University of Virginia, 400137, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4137, USA

    Karen Parshall

Authors
  1. Karen Parshall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karen Parshall .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Mathematik, Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Mainz, Germany

    David E. Rowe

  2. National Taiwan Normal University Dept.of Mathematics, Taipei, Taiwan

    Wann-Sheng Horng

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Parshall, K. (2015). “A New Era in the Development of Our Science”: The American Mathematical Research Community, 1920-1950. In: Rowe, D., Horng, WS. (eds) A Delicate Balance: Global Perspectives on Innovation and Tradition in the History of Mathematics. Trends in the History of Science. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12030-0_12

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation