Biography:Helen Abbot Merrill
Helen Abbot Merrill | |
|---|---|
 Helen Abbot Merrill, from the 1929 yearbook of Wellesley College | |
| Born | March 30, 1864 Llewellyn Park, Orange, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | May 1, 1949 (age 85) Wellesley, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Scientific career | |
| Thesis | On Solutions of Differential Equations Which Possess an Oscillatoin Theorem (1903) |
Helen Abbot Merrill (March 30, 1864 – May 1, 1949) was an American mathematician, educator and textbook author. She was chair of the mathematics department at Wellesley College, where she taught from 1893 to 1932.
Early life and education
Merrill was born on March 30, 1864, in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey.[1] Her father George Merrill was a New Jersey insurance claims adjustor; her mother was Emily Dodge Abbot Merrill. She lived in Newburyport, Massachusetts, for some of her childhood.[2] She entered Wellesley College in 1882; she intended to major in Greek and Latin, but switched to mathematics after one year, and graduated in 1886.[1] She pursued further studies at the University of Chicago and in Germany.[2] In 1903 she earned a PhD in mathematics at Yale University under the direction of James Pierpont. Her thesis was "On Solutions of Differential Equations which possess an Oscillation Theorem."[3]
Her younger brother William P. Merrill was a noted Presbyterian minister, hymn writer, and pacifist.[4]
Career
Merrill taught at girls' schools in New York and Pennsylvania after college.[2] She taught mathematics at Wellesley College beginning in 1893, and she was chair of the mathematics department from 1916 to 1932.[2][5] She rebuilt Wellesley's collection of cardboard mathematical models, after a fire destroyed the original set.[6] Upon her retirement in 1932 from Wellesley, she was given the title professor emerita.[6]
She became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1911.[7] In 1920 she was appointed vice-president of the Mathematical Association of America.[8]
Publications
Merrill wrote two textbooks with her Wellesley colleague Clara Eliza Smith: Selected Topics in Higher Algebra (Norwood, 1914) and A First Course in Higher Algebra (Macmillan, 1917).[9][10] She also wrote a book titled Mathematical Excursions in 1933, meant to explain some mathematical concepts to a young audience.[11]
Personal life
Merrill died in 1949, at the age of 85, in Wellesley, Massachusetts.[12]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Riddle, Larry (February 25, 2016), "Helen Abbot Merrill", Biographies of Women Mathematicians (Agnes Scott College), https://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/hmerrill.htm, retrieved March 26, 2020
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Helen A. Merrill, Headed Math Department at Wellesley College, 1916 to 1932". The Boston Daily Globe: pp. 13. May 3, 1949. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-daily-globe-helen-a-merrill/174598815/.
- ↑ Merrill, Helen A. (1903). "On Solutions of Differential Equations Which Possess an Oscillatoin Theorem". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 4 (4): 423–433. doi:10.2307/1986411. ISSN 0002-9947. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1986411.
- ↑ "William Pierson Merrill". https://centuryarchives.org/member-directory/?PersonID=1968.
- ↑ Wellesley College, The Legenda (1929 yearbook).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Three Retiring as Professors Served Wellesley 100 Years". The Boston Daily Globe: pp. 2. June 18, 1932. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-daily-globe-three-retiring-as/174597421/.
- ↑ "Men of Arts and Sciences". Boston Evening Transcript: pp. 9. May 3, 1911. https://www.newspapers.com/article/boston-evening-transcript-men-of-arts-an/174597295/.
- ↑ Henrion, C. "Helen Abbot Merrill" in Women of Mathematics: A Bibliographic Sourcebook, L. Grinstein, P. Campbell, eds. New York: Greenwood Press (1987): 147–151.
- ↑ Riddle, Larry (February 25, 2016), "Clara Eliza Smith", Biographies of Women Mathematicians (Agnes Scott College), https://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/smith.htm, retrieved May 8, 2018
- ↑ Reviews of A First Course in Higher Algebra:
- "none", The Journal of Education 87 (2): 49, January 1918
- Wells, Mary E. (February 1918), "none", The American Mathematical Monthly 25 (2): 72–74, doi:10.2307/2971993
- Jourdain, Philip E. B. (April 1918), "none", Science Progress 12 (48): 684
- ↑ Reviews of Mathematical Excursions:
- "none", The Mathematics Teacher 26 (5): 315, May 1933
- Wells, Mary E. (December 1933), "none", The American Mathematical Monthly 40 (10): 602–603, doi:10.2307/2301690
- Smith, David Eugene (December 1933), "none", The Mathematics Teacher 26 (8): 499–501
- P. W. L. C. (January 1934), "none", Junior-Senior High School Clearing House 8 (5): 319
- Inglis, Alex (February 1935), "none", The Mathematical Gazette 19 (232): 62, doi:10.2307/3606651
- Greitzer, Samuel L. (October 1958), "none", The Mathematics Teacher 51 (6): 481
- Sprague, R., "none", zbMATH
- ↑ "Obituary for Helen A. Merrill". The Star-Ledger: pp. 18. May 3, 1949. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-star-ledger-obituary-for-helen-a-me/174598098/.
External links
- Helen Abbot Merrill at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Green, Judy; LaDuke, Jeanne (2008). Pioneering Women in American Mathematics — The Pre-1940 PhD's. History of Mathematics. 34 (1st ed.). American Mathematical Society, The London Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-0-8218-4376-5. Biography on p. 415-418 of the Supplementary Material at AMS
- File:Woman s Who s who of America.pdf, 1914, p. 557 (= p. 546 in Pdf)
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