Greetings! I am Margaret A.M. (Marge) Murray—mathematician, writer, and historian of mathematics. I currently teach in the departments of Rhetoric and Mathematics at the University of Iowa. This website is the outgrowth of more than 25 years of research on the roughly 200 women who earned PhDs in mathematics from American colleges and universities during the years 1940-1959. My book, Women Becoming Mathematicians: Creating a Professional Identity in Post-World War II America (MIT Press 2000) describes the historical background, lives, and careers of 36 of these women, based on in-depth interviews conducted in the 1990s.
Since before the book was published, I’ve been compiling a database on the full complement of women who earned mathematics PhDs during those years. This website is home for that database, with information on all the women (not just the interviewees). The database is quite extensive, and I’m getting it up on the website in stages. To begin browsing the site and seeing what’s currently available, start at the database page.
LATEST UPDATES:
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- ARTICLE in the March 2021 AMS Notices: In my recent article, “American Women Mathematics PhDs of the 1940s,” you can read more about the database project and the 1940–1949 women PhDs.
- ARTICLE in the March 2023 AMS Notices: In my recent article, “American Women Mathematics PhDs of the 1950s,” you can read more about the database project and the 1950–1959 women PhDs.
- Data has been fully updated as of August 2023.