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 Win ...

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 Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

(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. Bachelor of Philosophy (BPhil, BPh, or PhB; la, Baccalaureus Philosophiae or ) is the title of an academic degree that usually involves considerable research, either through a thesis or supervised research projects. Unlike many other bachelor's ...

in 1869. Franklin worked the following seven years as surveyor and engineer for the

Baltimore City Council The Baltimore City Council is the legislative branch that governs the City of Baltimore and its more than 600,000 citizens. It has 14 members elected by district and a president elected at-large; all serve four-year terms. The Council holds regu ...

., 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 consiste ...

was founded in 1876, he had the opportunity to study mathematics, his true passion. He was awarded a doctorate in 1880While 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 James Joseph Sylvester (3 September 1814 – 15 March 1897) was an English mathematician. He made fundamental contributions to matrix theory, invariant theory, number theory, partition theory, and combinatorics. He played a leadership ...

till his return to England in 1883, applying the new calculational techniques to compute binary forms. In 1882 he married

; 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 ...

.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 ...

. In 1895 he left the university to begin a new career as journalist and writer. First as editor of Baltimore News (from 1895 to 1908) and after as associate editor of

New York Evening Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a Conservatism in the United States, conservative daily newspaper, daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip ...

(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

* * * *

External links

* {{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