Modern and Pure: Teaching Geometry in Early Twentieth-Century Women’s Colleges

Abstract

In 1913 The American Mathematical Monthly published an article encouraging the inclusion of synthetic projective geometry in the undergraduate curriculum. The author, William Henry Bussey, lamented that American colleges and universities rarely taught the subject despite its potential for industry, teachers, and the liberal arts curriculum. The following year Lao G. Simons responded in “hearty sympathy” describing the potential of synthetic geometry in broadening “the minds of prospective high school teachers.” Both Simons and Bussey particularly remarked on the success of the course at women’s colleges. Simons herself taught at the Normal College of the City of New York and referred to the appreciation “the girls” had of the subject. Bussey observed that “Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley, Wells, and Goucher College of Baltimore” regularly featured the course. Drawing on college catalogs, faculty publications, department histories, course notes, and textbooks, this paper will examine the diverse reasons for teaching this modern pure geometry at women’s colleges in the decade following 1913.