Mabel Barnes

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Mabel Schmeiser Barnes (* July 29 in 1905 in Wapello , Iowa , † 22 February 1993 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American mathematician and university lecturer .

Life and research

Born Mabel Schmeiser, the second of six children in Wapello, Iowa, Barnes attended a one-room country school in Iowa. She began studying Latin at Cornell College and received a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1926 . In 1928 she earned her master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and received her PhD in 1931 from Henry Blumberg at Ohio State University with the dissertation Some Properties Of Arbitrary Functions Concerning Approach to A Straight Line. This work was published in Fundamenta Mathematicae, Vol. 3, No. 22 published. She then worked for three years at Nebraska State Teachers College . In 1933 she was admitted to the first group of mathematicians at the newly opened Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University , along with Anne Stafford . Shortly after their arrival, the director of the School of Mathematics warned them that Princeton was not used to women in the study halls and that she should make herself as inconspicuous as possible. During her academic year she met graduate student John Landes Barnes and married him a year later. She then taught as a math teacher at a New York high school. When her husband became an assistant professor at Tufts University , she was able to attend Harvard University's math colloquia. Their son was born in 1936 and their daughter in 1940. She helped her husband by grading papers and teaching for him when he was away. She was also involved in the editing of the mathematical sections of the second edition "Handbook of Engineering Fundamentals" by Oval Eshbach. After the war ended there was a large influx of war veterans into the university, and since no male teacher was found, she was reinstated to teach at Tufts University. In 1947 her husband was called to the College of Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles , and she and the family moved to California . From 1950 to 1952 she was a lecturer, assistant professor until 1956, associate professor until 1964, professor until 1971 and after her retirement Professor Emerita of Mathematics at Occidental College in Los Angeles . In 1955 she became the editor of “Installation of New Chapters” at the Pentagon, the magazine of Kappa Mu Epsilon . Her main role in retirement was conservation work at both the Sierra Club and the Desert Protective Society.

Memberships

Publications

  • 1934: Schmeiser, M .: Some properties of arbitrary functions. Find. Math. 22: 70-76
  • 1988: Mabel S. Barnes. In Centennial reflections on women in American mathematics. AWM Newsletter 18 (6): 6–8. Transcript of a panel discussion sponsored by the AWM at the AMS Centennial meeting, Providence, RI, 9 Aug 1988. Reprint, with editorial revisions: 2005. Fifty years in mathematics. In Complexities, ed. BA Case and AM Leggett, 27-30. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

literature

  • Judy Green, Jeanne LaDuke: Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD's. 2009, ISBN 978-0-8218-4376-5 .
  • Centennial Reflections on Women in American Mathematics, "AWM Newsletter, Vol. 18, No. 6 (1988), 6-8. (Reprinted in Complexities: Women in Mathematics, Bettye Anne Case and Anne Leggett, Editors, Princeton University Press, 2005 , 27-30).
  • Occidental College Library Archives
  • Helen Brewster Owens Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Barnes, Mabel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmeiser Barnes, Mabel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Wapello , Iowa
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1993
Place of death los Angeles