GREAT WOMAN OF MATHEMATICS: DR. WINIFRED EDGERTON MERRILL, 1862-1951. The first American woman to earn a PhD in mathematics. She was born in Wisconsin. Little is known about her parents, but they were able to provide her with both emotional and material support for her dreams 1/9 
and ambitions, giving her both private tutors and a small home observatory. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Wellesley College. Pursuing a lifelong love of astronomy, she independently used data from Harvard's observatory to calculate the orbit of the 2/x
Pons-Brooks Comet, from the Halley's family of comets. This achievement bolstered her effort to be admitted to Columbia University, which at first rejected her due to her sex. She argued that their telescope and facilities provided a unique opportunity for her to further her 3/x
studies. She won an appeal and was admitted, but under serious restrictions. She was not permitted to attend lectures or interact with male students. Studying alone, she earned her PhD quite quickly--after only two years of work, she was granted high honors on a unanimous 4/x
vote of the trustees. There is some evidence that male students tried to make her life difficult, with a note in the scrapbook of the Wellesley College mathematics department. It indicates that they petitioned the professor to use the hardest possible text, thinking that 5/x
the difficulty would cause her to fail--but it was a book she had already used during her undergraduate days, at Wellesley! Her thesis was on "Multiple Integrals and Their Geometrical Interpretation of Cartesian Geometry, in Trilinears and Triplanars, in Tangentials, in
Quaternions, and in Modern Geometry; Their Analytical Interpretations in the Theory of Equations, Using Determinants, Invariants and Covariants as Instruments in the Investigation." Her graduation caused quite a stir, including a NYT comment on her clothing (pic). After she 7/x
earned her PhD, she married and had several children. The rest of her life was spent devoted to educational and other pursuits, particularly for women, running a girls' school for over twenty years. She was also part of the committee that petitioned Columbia towards change, 8/x
resulting in their creation of Barnard College. The NYT noted, upon her death, both her groundbreaking role and her advocacy for women to be granted admission to professions as well as higher education. She died in 1951, a few days shy of her 89th birthday. /end
