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Women's contributions to mathematics
Female mathematician
Essay on women's contribution in mathematics
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Evelyn Boyd Granville was one of the first African Americans to be a Mathematician. She was well educated by schools that helped her become a teacher (Professor) and has a background of her family whom also helped.
Evelyn was born on May 1, 1924 in Washington, DC. Her father, William Boyd, had many jobs to help support her family. Her mother, Julia Boyd, was a secretary and also support her family. When she was just five years old, she and her family lived through the Great Depression which caused her father to have many jobs. A little after, her parents separated. Her mother had an older sister and moved in with her and brought Evelyn as well. She began to attend Elementary, Junior high, and high school as she got older. She wanted to get an education and want to decide on what her career may be. The high school she attended was Dunbar high and was aspired by two Math teachers, Ulysses Basset and Mary Cromwell. This was the start of her discovering her career. When she graduated from high school, she attended Smith College with much her from herself and her family. Her mother sis...
Born on May 4, 1843, she was raised just like any other southern lady. She was the daughter of a merchant and grew up in Martinsburg, West Virginia with her parents, Benjamin Reed Boyd and Mary Rebecca Glenn, three brothers, one sister, and grandmother. She went by the name Belle Boyd instead of her original name, Maria Isabella Boyd. Boyd attended Mount Washington Female College of Baltimore from age 12 to 16 after receiving a preliminary education. People knew her to be a fun-loving debutante. Her low voice was charming and her figure, flawless. Her irregular features rendered her either completely plain or extremely beautiful.
Martha Euphemia Lofton Haynes was the first African American women to earn a PH.D in mathematics. She was the first and only child of William S. Lofton, a dentist and financier, and Lavinia Day Lofton. Euphemia Lofton Haynes was born Martha Euphemia Lofton on September 11, 1890 in Washington D.C. In 1917 she married her childhood sweetheart Dr.Harold Appo Haynes. They knew each other very well, as they grew up in the same neighborhood when they were teenagers. They both attended, and graduated from M St. High school. Her husband graduated from M St high school in 1906, a year earlier than she did. During their marriage they were highly focused on their careers, and didn’t have any children.
As the wife of a popular United States president, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City, October 11, 1884, and died November 7, 1962. She was an active worker for social causes. She was the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, and was raised by her maternal grandmother after the premature death of her parents. In 1905 she married her cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They had six children, but one of them died in infancy. Although she was extremely shy, Eleanor worked hard and became a well known and admired humanitarian. (Webster III, 100).
There are a variety of areas in the science field that African Americans have participated. There were Chemists, Biochemists, Biologists, Physicists, and many others. There were people like Herman Branson who was an assistant professor of chemistry and physics at Howard University who help prepare many young students for the science field. Dr. Branson became a full professor of physics and was made chairman of the physics department of Howard University from 1941 to 1968. He had research interests in mathematical biology and protein structure.
Not only was she smart, she had a lot of leadership skills which was helpful because she was the oldest of ten children. She only grew to about five feet tall and had dark brown hair. In her youth, she enjoyed music, sewing,
Anna Julia Haywood was born into slavery to Hannah Stanley Haywood and her master, George Washington Haywood, in 1858.1 At the age of nine, she enrolled in St. Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute for free Blacks. Cooper married St. Augustine graduate George Cooper, in 1877. His death in 1879 "ironically allowed her to pursue a ca reer as a teacher, whereas no married woman—black or white—could continue to teach."2 Cooper received a Bachelor's and a Master's degree from Oberlin College, and was first recruited to teach in 1887. She taught at M Street High School, Washingto n's only black high school, for many years, and was the subject of public controversy because of her educational philosophy.
Lydia Maria Child was one of the most influential women from the 1800s. She was a writer, abolitionist, and women’s’ rights activist, and in 2001 was honored by the National Women’s Hall Of Fame. She was born Lydia Francis on February 11, 1802, in Medford, Massachusetts, to parents Susannah Rand Francis and Convers Francis, and was the youngest of their seven children. However, her time with her parents was cut short when, in 1814, her mother died. Lydia’s father chose to send her to live with her sister, Mary Francis Preston, in Norridgewock, Maine. Near the town was a Penobscot settlement, which started her interest in Indians. Lydia stayed with her sister until 1820, and her time was spent studying to become a teacher. In 1821, she moved back to Massachusetts and lived with her brother, Convers, who was a Unitarian minister. There she founded a school for girls and wrote her first four books.
...acknowledged as the greatest women mathematician of the 1900’s, even though she had to go through many obstacles and chauvinism. She was the first women to be accepted into a major college. She proved many of the stereotypes that women were considered to be erroneous, which in the long run also made her a famous person. She was the one who discovered the associative law, commutative law, and the distributive law. These are the Laws that make the basics for Algebra, Geometry, and Basic math. All together she has unquestionably earned the title as the most famous woman mathematician of the 1900’s.
Gertrude Margaret Lowthian bell a British archaeologist,writer and government official, was born on July ,14 ,1868 in Durham England. Gertrude bell came from a wealthy family who were industrialist hugh bell and mary bell. Bell was educated at lady margaret hall, university of oxford she was the first woman to obtain first-class honors there. Her father was a businessman, Her mother Mary died giving birth to Gertrudes brother when she was only 3 year old.
“The color of the skin is in no way connected with strength of the mind or intellectual powers”. The words of wisdom from the intelligent Mathematician by the name of Benjamin Banneker. Benjamin Banneker was an African American almanac author and writer and farmer. He was born in Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland on November 9th, 1731. Benjamin was the first African-American to invent the first functioning clock. Benjamin was a self-educated black man who had known about math and astronomy which is a branch of science that deals with objects, space and the physical universe.
Claudette Colvin was born September 5, 1939 in Montgomery, Alabama. She was raised and adopted by C.P. Colvin and Mary Anne Colvin. She grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, which was a sanctuary for drug-addicts. Even though her surroundings were poor, her aspirations were high. She studied hard at school, achieved mostly As in all of her courses and even
Scott w. Williams is a Famous African American Mathematician, He was born April 22, 1943 in Staten Island, New York city. He is a Professor of mathematics at the university at buffalo suny. He studied at two university Morgan State and Leigh University. Scott Williams is an only grandchild. His grandparents strongly valued education. His mother Beryl Williams was the first black to graduate from the university in Maine in the year of 1936. Scott w. Williams had a perfect SAT Math score but he failed to get a Scholarship to MIT. By the time Scott Williams received a B.S. In Mathematics from Morgan state college in 1964. He had solved 4 advanced problems in the mathematics monthly. Along with his interest in mathematics, Williams has also been
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an African American born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 23, 1868 (Bois). The pronunciation of his mane is Due Boyss, with the accent on the last syllable (Lewis). Most of what is known about his life comes from his personal account, whose compelling prose recreations of the town, the times, the races, and of his own family are monuments in American history. (Lewis). Williams’s education was superior for the time, after graduating as valedictorian from his local high school; he earned his first bachelor’s degree in sociology from Fisk University in 1888. His education and accreditation continued to grow with him and in 1895 he earned his doctorate in history from Harvard University and his dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States, was published in 1896 as the first volume of Harvard Historical Studies. During 1894 through 1896 he became a teacher at Wilberfoce University, a black Methodist college in Ohio, where he met his wife, Nina Gormer. As a result of his increasing social and political awareness he helped organize the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1903 he published The Soul of Black Folk, where he delineated, his social and political theory in a twofold basis: “The Talented Tenth” and “double consciousness.” His conventional opinion and left-wing politics forced an early retirement form Atlanta University and created tension that would finally get him fired from the NAACP in 1944. He passed away on August 27, 1963, but until his death he continued to publish prolific poetry, novels, history books and essays committed to racial issues. (Gallego).
Her intelligence allowed to skip through grades at a very young age. By 10 years old, she was already a high school freshman. By 18, she enrolled in West Virginia State College, where she found a mentor by the name of Professor W. W. Schieffel in Claytor. He was the third African American to earn a PhD in mathematics. When integration occurred in 1939, Dr. John W. Davis chose Katherine and two other students to get to the West Virginia University. After a while, she quit to start a family. She returned to teach and in 1952, she became interested in the West Area Computing Section at the NACA’s (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) later on called NASA (n. pag.).
Education has always been an important piece in my family’s legacy. My grandmother was one of the first African American women to have a school named after her, and the majority of my uncles, aunts, and cousins all work within the education field. Naturally, I decided to write about two influential educators that have greatly impacted my life.