Anne Lucy Bosworth Focke (September 29, 1868 – May 15, 1907) was an American mathematician who became the first mathematics professor at what is now the

University of Rhode Island The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of Rhode Island. The univer ...

, and later became the first female doctoral student of

David Hilbert David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician and philosopher of mathematics and one of the most influential mathematicians of his time. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental idea ...

Early life

Bosworth was originally from

Woonsocket, Rhode Island Woonsocket ( ), is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 43,240 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, making it the sixth largest city in the state. Being Rhode Island's northernmost city, Woonsoc ...

. When she was four, her father and a younger sister died, and she grew up in a family of women: her mother (a librarian), her grandmother (also widowed), and her aunt.

Undergraduate education and academic work

Bosworth attended Woonsocket High School, and graduated from

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...

in 1890. At Wellesley, her classmates included mathematicians Grace Andrews and Clara Latimer Bacon. She worked for two years as a teacher at Amesbury High School in Massachusetts, and was appointed as an instructor of mathematics at the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (later to become the

) in early 1892, the first year the school became a college. One month later she became its professor of mathematics and physics.

Graduate education

While continuing to work at the college, Bosworth earned a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

from 1894 through 1896 through summer study with

E. H. Moore Eliakim Hastings Moore (; January 26, 1862 – December 30, 1932), usually cited as E. H. Moore or E. Hastings Moore, was an American mathematician. Life Moore, the son of a Methodist minister and grandson of US Congressman Eliakim H. Moore, di ...

and

Oskar Bolza Oskar Bolza (12 May 1857 – 5 July 1942) was a German mathematician, and student of Felix Klein. He was born in Bad Bergzabern, Palatinate, then a district of Bavaria, known for his research in the calculus of variations, particularly influen ...

. In 1898, taking a leave from her work for the college, Bosworth traveled to the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

in Germany, where she worked under the supervision of

. She defended her dissertation there in 1899, and was awarded the Ph.D. in 1900.Chronology from Green and LaDuke and MacTutor. Wyant gives slightly different dates. Her dissertation was ''Begründung einer vom Parallelenaxiome unabhängigen Streckenrechnung'', and concerned

non-Euclidean geometry In mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry consists of two geometries based on axioms closely related to those that specify Euclidean geometry. As Euclidean geometry lies at the intersection of metric geometry and affine geometry, non-Euclidean ge ...

. She was David Hilbert's first female doctoral student, part of a group that later included Nadeschda Gernet (1902), Vera Myller (1906),

Margarete Kahn Margarethe Kahn (known as Grete Kahn, also Margarete Kahn, born 27 August 1880, missing after deportation to Piaski, Świdnik County, Piaski, Poland on 28 March 1942) was a German mathematician and Holocaust victim. She was among the first women ...

(1909), Klara Löbenstein (1910), and Eva Koehler (1912).

Later life

In 1901 Bosworth married Theodore Moses Focke, an American civil engineer, materials scientist, and applied mathematician whom she had met in Göttingen. Soon afterwards she followed her husband to

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

, leaving her academic work (except for assisting her husband in grading) to raise a family of three children. She caught

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

in 1907 and died of it.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Focke, Anne Bosworth 1868 births 1907 deaths People from Woonsocket, Rhode Island 19th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians 19th-century American women mathematicians 20th-century American women mathematicians Wellesley College alumni University of Chicago alumni University of Göttingen alumni University of Rhode Island faculty 19th-century American women educators 19th-century American educators Mathematicians from Rhode Island