Abstract

A research-level community of mathematicians developed in the United States in the closing quarter of the nineteenth century. Since that time, American mathematicians have regularly paused to assess the state of their community and to reflect on its mathematical output. This paper analyzes a series of such reflections—beginning with Simon Newcomb’s thoughts on the state of the exact sciences in America in 1874 and culminating with the 1988 commentaries on the “problems of mathematics" discussed at Princeton’s bicentennial celebrations in 1946—against a backdrop of broader historical trends.

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