Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler (née Johnson; May 5, 1883 – March 26, 1966) was an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. She is best known for early work on linear algebra in infinite dimensions, which has later become a part of

functional analysis Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (e.g. Inner product space#Definition, inner product, Norm (mathematics)#Defini ...

.Louise S. Grinstein and Paul J. Campbell, "Anna Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler: Her life and work, Historia Mathematica 9(1982)37–53

Biography

Anna Johnson was born on May 5, 1883, to

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

immigrant parents in

Calliope, Iowa Calliope, Iowa was an incorporated town in northwestern Iowa. Calliope was formally incorporated in 1882. It served as the county seat of Sioux County, Iowa. The town of Calliope was annexed by the neighboring town of Hawarden, Iowa in 1893. His ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Her father, Andrew Gustav Johnson, was a furniture dealer and undertaker. Her mother, Amelia (née Friberg), was a homemaker. Both of Johnson's parents came from the parish of

Lyrestad Lyrestad is a locality situated in Mariestad Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 479 inhabitants in 2010. In Lyrestad the Kinnekullebanan railway crosses the Göta Canal The Göta Canal ( sv, Göta kanal) is a Swedish cana ...

, in

Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Väs ...

, Sweden. Johnson had two older siblings, Esther and Elmer. At the age of nine her family moved to

Akron, Iowa Akron is a city in Plymouth County, Iowa, United States. The population was 1,558 at the 2020 census. History Akron was incorporated September 7, 1882. The town's name is a transfer from Akron, Ohio. Geography According to the United States ...

and she was enrolled in a

private school Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

. In 1903 she graduated from the University of South Dakota and began graduate work at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

. Her thesis, titled ''The extension of Galois theory to linear differential equations'', earned her a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an 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 practice.

in 1904. She obtained a second graduate degree one year later from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

, where she took courses from

Maxime Bôcher Maxime Bôcher (August 28, 1867 – September 12, 1918) was an American mathematician who published about 100 papers on differential equations, series, and algebra. He also wrote elementary texts such as ''Trigonometry'' and ''Analytic Geometry''. ...

and William Fogg Osgood.Kimberling, Clark. "Emmy Noether and Her Influence". ''Emmy Noether: A Tribute to Her Life and Work.'' Ed. James W. Brewer and Martha K. Smith. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1981. . pp. 3–61.O'Connor, J.J. and E.F. Robertson
"Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler"
''The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive''. January 1997. Retrieved on April 10, 2008. In 1905 she won an

Alice Freeman Palmer Alice Freeman Palmer (born Alice Elvira Freeman; February 21, 1855 – December 6, 1902) was an American educator. As Alice Freeman, she was president of Wellesley College from 1881 to 1887, when she left to marry the Harvard professor George He ...

Fellowship from

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

to spend a year at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

, where she studied under

David Hilbert David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many a ...

, Felix Klein,

Hermann Minkowski Hermann Minkowski (; ; 22 June 1864 – 12 January 1909) was a German mathematician and professor at Königsberg, Zürich and Göttingen. He created and developed the geometry of numbers and used geometrical methods to solve problems in number t ...

, and

Karl Schwarzschild Karl Schwarzschild (; 9 October 1873 – 11 May 1916) was a German physicist and astronomer. Schwarzschild provided the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, for the limited case of a single spherical non-r ...

. As she worked toward a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

, her relationship with Alexander Pell, a former professor from the University of South Dakota, intensified. He traveled to Göttingen and they were married in July 1907. This trip posed a significant threat to Pell's life, since he was a former

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n double agent whose real name was

Sergey Degayev Sergey Petrovich Degayev (also spelled Degaev; russian: link=no, Серге́й Петрович Дегаев; 1857 in Moscow – 1921 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was a Russian revolutionary terrorist, Okhrana agent, and the murderer of inspe ...

. After the wedding, the Pells returned to Vermillion, South Dakota, where she taught classes in the theory of functions and

differential equation In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, an ...

s. By 1908 she was back in Göttingen, working on her dissertation; an argument with Hilbert, however, made its completion impossible. She moved with her husband to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, where she worked 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 ...

to finish her dissertation, ''Biorthogonal Systems of Functions with Applications to the Theory of Integral Equations'', and received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in 1909.Kimberling gives the year of her Ph.D. as 1910. She began looking for a teaching position, but found hostility in every mathematics department. She wrote to a friend: "I had hoped for a position in one of the good univ. like Wisc., Ill. etc., but there is such an objection to women that they prefer a man even if he is inferior both in training and research".Riddle, Larry
"Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler"
''Biographies of Women Mathematicians''. May 23, 2007. Retrieved on April 10, 2008. In 1911 her husband suffered a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

and she, after teaching his classes at the Armout Institute for the remainder of the semester, accepted a position at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...

. She taught there for seven years. In 1917, her last year at

, she published (together with R. L. Gordon) a paper regarding

Sturm's theorem In mathematics, the Sturm sequence of a univariate polynomial is a sequence of polynomials associated with and its derivative by a variant of Euclid's algorithm for polynomials. Sturm's theorem expresses the number of distinct real roots of loca ...

.A. J. Pell and R. L. Gordon:''The Modified Remainders Obtained in Finding the Highest Common Factor of Two Polynomials''. Annals of Mathematics, Second Series, Vol. 18, No. 4, 188—193, 1917 In that they solved a problem that had eluded J. J. Sylvester (1853) and E. B. Van Vleck (1899). That paper (along with their theorem) was forgotten for almost 100 years until it was recently rediscovered.Akritas, Alkiviadis G
''Anna Johnson and Her Seminal Theorem of 1917''
Computer Tools in Education, Vol. 2, 13—35, 2016. In 1918 she became an associate professor at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Three years later she became the head of the Bryn Mawr mathematics department, and became a full professor in 1925. In the same year she married a colleague named Arthur Wheeler, who soon went to

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. She moved with him, commuting to Bryn Mawr, teaching part-time, and becoming active in Princeton's mathematics society. In 1927 she became the first woman to present a lecture at the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

Colloquium. After Wheeler died in 1932, she returned to Bryn Mawr and taught full-time. Wheeler was instrumental in bringing German mathematician Emmy Noether to Bryn Mawr in 1933, after the latter's expulsion from the University of Göttingen by the Nazi government. The two women worked together happily for two years, until Noether died suddenly after an operation in 1935. Wheeler continued teaching at Bryn Mawr until she retired in 1948. She died in 1966 after suffering a stroke. Her doctoral students included

Dorothy Maharam Dorothy Maharam Stone (July 1, 1917 – September 27, 2014) was an American mathematician born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, who made important contributions to measure theory and became the namesake of Maharam's theorem and Maharam algebra. L ...

and Marion Cameron Gray.

References

External links

"Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler", Biographies of Women Mathematicians

Agnes Scott College Agnes Scott College is a private women's liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia. The college enrolls approximately 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The college is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and is considered one of the ...

''Biorthogonal Systems of Functions'' (Abstract)
* Biography on p. 633–638 of th
Supplementary Material
a
AMS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wheeler, Anna Johnson Pell 1883 births 1966 deaths People from Hawarden, Iowa 20th-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians American people of Swedish descent University of Iowa alumni University of South Dakota alumni Bryn Mawr College faculty Mount Holyoke College faculty Radcliffe College alumni 20th-century American women scientists Mathematicians from Iowa People from Vermillion, South Dakota 20th-century women mathematicians People from Akron, Iowa