Helen Abbot Merrill

Helen Abbot Merrill (1864 – 1949) was an American mathematician, educator and textbook author.[1]

Biography

Born March 30, 1876 to a New Jersey insurance claims adjuster and a housewife, and raised in Massachusetts, her family tree included colonial settlers. Young Helen's formal education started at a high school in Massachusetts, and after graduating she went to Wellesley College, where she intended to major in Greek and Latin. Unusually, the mathematics faculty at the college consisted mostly of women, including Ellen Hayes, and before completing her first years, Helen Merrill had decided to major in mathematics instead of languages. In 1893 she began teaching at Wellesley while also studying and guest lecturing abroad. In 1903 she earned a PhD in mathematics at Yale under the direction of James Pierpont. In 1920 she was appointed vice-president of the Mathematical Association of America. Upon her retirement from Wellesley, she was given the title Professor Emerita.

At Wellesley, Merrill wrote two textbooks with Clara Eliza Smith, Selected Topics in Higher Algebra (Norwood, 1914) and A First Course in Higher Algebra (Macmillan, 1917).[2][3] She also wrote as a popularizer a book titled Mathematical Excursions in 1933.[4]

Bibliography

  • C. Henrion "Helen Abbot Merrill" in Women of Mathematics: A Bibliographic Sourcebook L. Grinstein, P. Campbell, ed.s New York: Greenwood Press (1987): 147 - 151

References

  1. ↑ Helen Abbot Merrill - Agnes Scott College
  2. ↑ Riddle, Larry (February 25, 2016), "Clara Eliza Smith", Biographies of Women Mathematicians, Agnes Scott College, retrieved 2018-05-08
  3. ↑ Reviews of A First Course in Higher Algebra:
    • The Journal of Education, 87 (2): 49, January 1918, JSTOR 42826577
    • Wells, Mary E. (February 1918), The American Mathematical Monthly, 25 (2): 72–74, doi:10.2307/2971993
    • Jourdain, Philip E. B. (April 1918), Science Progress, 12 (48): 684, JSTOR 43426456
  4. ↑ Reviews of Mathematical Excursions:
    • The Mathematics Teacher, 26 (5): 315, May 1933, JSTOR 27951594
    • Wells, Mary E. (December 1933), The American Mathematical Monthly, 40 (10): 602–603, doi:10.2307/2301690
    • Smith, David Eugene (December 1933), The Mathematics Teacher, 26 (8): 499–501, JSTOR 27951644
    • P. W. L. C. (January 1934), The Marginal Fifty per Cent, Junior-Senior High School Clearing House, 8 (5): 319, JSTOR 30174218
    • Inglis, Alex (February 1935), The Mathematical Gazette, 19 (232): 62, doi:10.2307/3606651
    • Greitzer, Samuel L. (October 1958), The Mathematics Teacher, 51 (6): 481, JSTOR 27955732

This article incorporates material from Helen Merrill on PlanetMath, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • 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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