Mathematics at Duke: The Early History

One time Duke history professor, Robert F. Durden, has written extensively about the Duke family and the transformation of Trinity College into what has become one of the premier universities in the world. In his comprehensive The Launching of Duke University, 1924-1949, Duke University Press 1993, Durden outlines the early history of our math department. The following summary is based on Durden’s description together with some information from the university archivist and contemporary web sites.

In 1891, shortly before Trinity College moved from Randolph County to Durham, Robert L. Flowers, a graduate of the US Naval Academy, was hired as a mathematics instructor. Flowers remained a very popular teacher and the chair of the department even after 1910 when he assumed the first of his many administrative roles. As vice president of Trinity College in 1924, Flowers played a significant role in persuading James Buchanan Duke to establish Duke University. He served as president of Duke University from 1941-1948.

Although Flowers and two other instructors remained in the department of the new Duke University for nearly a decade, in keeping with plans to build a major university, the administration began to assemble a distinguished research mathematics faculty. In 1925, William W. Elliott became the first Ph.D. (Cornell) to teach mathematics at Duke, continuing for 43 years. Before his death at age 95 in 1993, Elliott had endowed a fund for postdoctoral positions that have since expanded into the Assistant Research Professorships and the Teaching Assistant Professorships.

Soon after inaugurating its new graduate school, the Duke Math Department awarded its first M.A. degree to John M. Clarkson in 1926. A few years after receiving his Ph.D. in Algebraic Geometry from Cornell, Clarkson joined the faculty of North Carolina State University in 1934 as one of the first two faculty members in mathematics with a doctorate.

In 1929, Canadian-born mathematician Arthur Hickson (Chicago 1928) joined the department and continued until his retirement in 1965. Julia Dale (Cornell 1924) joined him as the first woman professor in the department in 1930. She became ill a few years later and died in 1936. The Julia Dale Prize became a lasting memorial to her. See www.math.duke.edu/news/awards/dale/index.html for more about her life and work.

Joseph M. Thomas (U Penn 1923) was recruited to Duke in 1930 and encouraged to establish the Duke Mathematical Journal with himself as editor. In his first year at Duke, Thomas supervised Duke’s first Ph.D. student in mathematics, Ruth W. Stokes. Her thesis, A Geometric Theory of Linear Inequalities, and other aspects of her life and career have been described in the Spring 2008 Newsletter of the Southeastern Section of the MAA: http://frodo.elon.edu/maase/s08newsletter.pdf .

The reputation of the department was greatly enhanced with the arrival of John Roberts (Texas) and Leonard Carlitz (U Penn) in 1931 and 1932 respectively. The second Ph.D. in mathematics was awarded to Francis Dressel in 1933 who continued as a member of the faculty, and for many years the Director of Undergraduate Studies, until he retired at age 70.

Our first chapter of this capsule history ends with the hiring of John J. Gergen (Rice) in 1936. Gergen, an established mathematician at the time, became chairman of the department year later and “tenaciously held that position” until shortly before his death in 1967. The Gergen lectures were established in his memory.