Mary Frances Winston Newson

Mary Frances Winston Newson

Mary Frances Winston Newson (August 7, 1869 – December 5, 1959) was an American mathematician. She became the first female American to receive a PhD in mathematics from a European university, namely the University of Göttingen in Germany.^[1]

Newson was born Mary Frances Winston in Forreston, Illinois. She and her older brother enrolled at the University of Wisconsin when she was 15. She graduated with honors in mathematics in 1889.^[1] After teaching at Downer College in Fox Lake, Wisconsin, she applied for a fellowship at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania in 1890. Though she was initially turned down, she was urged by Professor Charlotte Scott to reapply. She was awarded the fellowship the next year but chose to continue her studies at the University of Chicago after a year.^[2]

At the International Mathematical Congress held at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, she met Felix Klein, who urged her to study at the University of Göttingen. With financial assistance from Christine Ladd-Franklin, she arrived in Germany at the same time as two other American students, Margaret Maltby and Grace Chisholm. Her first paper, on the topic of hypergeometric functions, was published in 1894. She graduated magna cum laude and was awarded her PhD upon the publication of her dissertation, "Über den Hermite'schen Fall der Lamé'schen Differentialgleichungen", in 1897.^[3] She published only one further article, the first English translation of the 1900 lecture by David Hilbert presenting the first ten of his famous problems, issued in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society.^[4]

Newson became head of the one-person mathematics department at Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University). In 1900, she left that job and married Henry Byron Newson, head of the mathematics department at the University of Kansas.^[3] They had three children but Henry Newson died of a heart attack in 1910. Eventually, Newson found a teaching position in 1913 at Washburn College in Kansas. Newson was one of eight Washburn faculty members to sign a petition defending a political science professor fired because of his political views. All of the signers left Washburn within a year or two, including Newson, who became department head at Eureka College in her native Illinois until her retirement in 1942.^[4]

Newson was one of only 22 women to join the American Mathematical Association before 1900.^[4] In 1940, she was honored by the Women's Centennial Congress as one of a hundred women in positions not open to women a century earlier.^[1] International relations was a hobby of Newson and her three children started the Mary Winston Newson Memorial Lecture on International Relations at Eureka College.^[5]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Grinstein and Campbell, p. 161
2. ^ Grinstein and Campbell, pp. 160–1
3. ^ ^{a b} Grinstein and Campbell, p. 162
4. ^ ^{a b c} Grinstein and Campbell, p. 163
5. ^ Grinstein and Campbell, pp. 162–3

References

• Louise S. Grinstein (Editor), Paul J. Campbell (Editor) (1987). Women of Mathematics: A Bio-Bibliographic -Sourcebook. Greenwood Press, New York. ISBN 978-0313248498. pp. 161–64.

External links

• Biographies of Women Mathematicians

Persondata
Name	Newson, Mary Frances Winston
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	August 7, 1869
Place of birth
Date of death	December 5, 1959
Place of death