Pioneers: The Pre-1940 PhD’s

Abstract

This chapter focuses on women in American mathematics during the century leading up to the founding of the AWM in 1971. In particular, it reviews results that appear in the authors’ 2009 book Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD’s and in the supplementary material that can be found on the webpage http://www.ams.org/publications/authors/books/postpub/hmath-34-PioneeringWomen.pdf. To provide context for the understanding of women’s early participation in American mathematics, we summarize the family backgrounds, education, and employment of the 228 women who earned doctorates before 1940. We provide details of the experiences and contributions of a number of these women.