Fabian Franklin (1853–1939) was a Hungarian-born American engineer, mathematician and journalist, husband of
Christine Ladd-Franklin
Christine Ladd-Franklin (December 1, 1847 – March 5, 1930) was an American psychologist, logician, and mathematician.
Early life and education
Christine Ladd, sometimes known by her nickname "Kitty", was born on December 1, 1847, in Winds ...
.
Life and work
The Franklin family (his parents were born in Poland) migrated from
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
to
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
(United States) when Fabian Franklin was four years old and they afterwards moved to Washington, D.C. in 1861. He was educated at
Columbian College (now George Washington University) where he graduated
Ph.B. in 1869. Franklin worked the following seven years as surveyor and engineer for the
Baltimore City Council.
[, MacTutor History of Mathematics.]
When
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...
was founded in 1876, he had the opportunity to study mathematics, his true passion. He was awarded a doctorate in 1880
[While a published version of his dissertation appeared in the ''American Journal of Mathematics'' in 1878, three sources agree that his PhD was conferred in 1880. See ''Johns Hopkins Half-Century Directory'' (1926), p. 119; Karen H. Parshall, ''James Joseph Sylvester'' (2006), p. 258; and the Johns Hopkins University ''Circulars,'' 1880] and he was the assistant of
James Joseph Sylvester till his return to England in 1883, applying the new calculational techniques to compute
binary forms. In 1882 he married
Christine Ladd-Franklin
Christine Ladd-Franklin (December 1, 1847 – March 5, 1930) was an American psychologist, logician, and mathematician.
Early life and education
Christine Ladd, sometimes known by her nickname "Kitty", was born on December 1, 1847, in Winds ...
; the marriage was a marriage of equals, based on their shared concerns, both social and intellectual. They both studied with
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
.
[Houser, Nathan (1989),]
Introduction
", ''Writings of Charles S. Peirce'', 4:xxxviii, find "Eighty-nine". During his short university period, some fifteen years, he published thirty papers, most of which appeared in the
American Journal of Mathematics
The ''American Journal of Mathematics'' is a bimonthly mathematics journal published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
History
The ''American Journal of Mathematics'' is the oldest continuously published mathematical journal in the United S ...
.
In 1895 he left the university to begin a new career as journalist and writer.
First as editor of
Baltimore News
The ''Baltimore News-American'' was a broadsheet newspaper published in downtown Baltimore, Maryland until May 27, 1986. It had a continuous lineage (in various forms) of more than 200 years. For much of the mid-20th century, it had the largest ...
(from 1895 to 1908) and after as associate editor of
New York Evening Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.
It was established i ...
(from 1909 to 1919). He also wrote some remarkable books on social, economic and political issues like ''Cost of living'' (1915), ''What Prohibition Has Done to America'' (1922) and ''Plain Talks on Economics: Leading Principles and Their Application to the Issues of Today'' (1924) among others. He also collaborated in the launching of ''The Weekly Review'' (1919–1922), a journal devoted to the Consideration of Politics, of Social and Economic Tendencies, of History, Literature, and the Arts. He also wrote a biography of the founding president of Johns Hopkins University, ''The Life of Daniel Coit Gilman'' (1910).
References
Bibliography
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Franklin, Fabian
1853 births
1939 deaths
19th-century American mathematicians
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
George Washington University alumni
Johns Hopkins University alumni
Johns Hopkins University faculty