Agnes Scott College

Florence Eliza Allen

October 4, 1876 - December 31, 1960


Florence Allen was born on October 4, 1876 in Horicon, Wisconsin. She received her undergraduate and master degrees at the University of Wisconsin in 1900 and 1901, respectively. In 1907 she became the second woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the fourth Ph.D. overall from that department. Her thesis was entitled "The cycle involutions of third order determined by nets of curves of deficiency 0, 1, and 2." It was published in the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 45 (1914) [Abstract]. She remained at the University of Wisconsin as an instructor in mathematics for the next thirty years, publishing two more papers on "A Certain Class of Transcendental Curves" and "Closure of the Tangential Process on the Rational Plane Cubic". Allen was promoted to assistant professor in 1945, and retired two years later. She was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

References

  1. Woman's Who's Who of America: A biographical dictionary of contemporary women of the United States and Canada. 1914-1915. John William Leonard, Editor-in-Chief. New York: The American Commonwealth Co., 1914.
  2. Helen Brewster Owens Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
  3. Author Profile at zbMath
  4. Mathematics Genealogy Project