Mary Speer

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Mary Speer (born March 27, 1906 in Midway , Pennsylvania , † November 23, 1966 in Pittsburgh ) was an American mathematician and university professor .

Life and research

Speer was born Mary Margaret Taylor, the third of four children, and attended Midway High School from 1918 to 1921. The following year, she attended Carnegie High School on the outskirts of Pittsburgh and was awarded a four-year college scholarship, awarded annually by Washington County based on a competitive examination. From 1922 to 1926 she studied mathematics and Latin at the University of Pittsburgh . After her excellent Bachelor's degree in 1926, she was elected to the Sigma Kappa Phi Society and the Society of Honor for Women's Studies in Pittsburgh. From 1926 to 1930 she was a teaching assistant at the University of Pittsburgh, earned her master’s degree in 1928 and studied at the same time at the University of Chicago in the summer of 1928 . From 1930 to 1934 she was a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her doctorate in 1935 with the dissertation: Reciprocals of Certain Curves and Surfaces with Respect to a Space Cubic Curve. In 1935 she married the mathematician and lawyer Eugene R. Speer (1903–1978), with whom she had three children, all of whom also studied mathematics. She taught as an assistant until 1937, until 1938 and from 1942 to 1943 as an instructor in mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh. She left the University of Pittsburgh because she was told that men had to support their families and needed the money. She was a dedicated Presbyterian and active member and administrator of the Girl Scouts of Allegheny County , Pennsylvania. She died of cancer in Pittsburgh in 1966 at the age of 60.

Publications (selection)

  • 1935: Taylor, MM: Reciprocals of certain curves and surfaces with respect to a space cubic curve. PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, directed by Forest Almos Foraker.
  • 1929: Taylor, MM: (Translator from the Latin) On the theory of combinations, by Jacques Bernoulli. In A Source Book in Mathematics, ed. DE Smith, 272-77. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co. Reprint: 1959.
  • 1937: Reciprocals with respect to a space cubic. Amer. Math. Monthly 44.
  • 1939: Types of curvature of curves and surfaces. Amer. Math. Monthly 46.

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Speer, Mary
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Taylor, Mary Margaret (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Midway , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 1966
Place of death Pittsburgh