Gary
G. Cochell
Professor of Mathematics
Culver-Stockton College
(This article appeared in Historia Mathematica 25
(1998), 133–153. It is included here with permission of the author).
Abstract:
In this paper I describe the early history of the Cornell University
Mathematics Department in the historical context of the late nineteenth
century. In particular, I show that it is a case study of the
emergence of the American mathematical community.
MSC 1991 subject classification: 01A55, 01A73
Key Words: Cornell University Mathematics Department, James Oliver,
Virgil Snyder.
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE BIRTH OF AN AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
3. THE FIRST MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT
4. JAMES EDWARD OLIVER AND EARLY GRADUATE-LEVEL
MATHEMATICS
5. A VIABLE GRADUATE PROGRAM
6. CORNELL MATHEMATICS AT THE END OF THE CENTURY
7. CONCLUSIONS
8. REFERENCES
1. INTRODUCTION
In their significant works Parshall and Rowe [45] [46],
Fenster and Parshall [28] [29], and Parshall [44] clearly make the case
for the emergence of the American mathematical research community in
the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Parshall says it this
way: "In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, American mathematics
underwent a series of dramatic changes that propelled it onto the international
scene" [44, 7]. She credits the "opening of Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore with its explicitly articulated purpose of training students
at an advanced, graduate level" [44, 7] as the beginning of this period
of change. But with the departure of James Joseph Sylvester (1814-1897)
the English transplant algebraist, from The Johns Hopkins University
for England in 1883, the American mathematical scene had lost a leader
for change. Almost exclusively America looked to Europe for guidance.
Many American students of promise thus went to Europe for their doctorates
or for post-doctoral work in the 1880s and 1890s. When this generation
of European trained mathematicians came back and took the lead in their
institutions, American mathematics emerged into a viable mathematical
research community. In this paper, I will show that the early
history of the Cornell Mathematics Department represents a case study
in this emergence of the American mathematical research community.
In fact, in the first decades of the twentieth century Cornell was among
the leaders in this nation in the mathematical emergence.
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