Agnes Scott College

Marie Litzinger

Marie Litzinger
Additional Photo
Additional Photo

May 8, 1899 - April 7, 1952


Marie Litzinger was born in Bedford, Pennsylvania. She received her B.A. degree (1920) and M.A. degree (1922) from Bryn Mawr College. She taught at the Devon Manor School while working on her master's degree. She had been awarded a Bryn Mawr European fellowship upon her graduation in 1920, which she used to study at the University of Rome during 1923-24. After teaching at the Greenwich Academy for one year, she joined the Mount Holyoke College mathematics department in 1925 as an instructor in mathematics and taught there until her death in 1952. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1928 and to associate professor in 1937. During this time she continued her graduate studies and received her Ph.D. in 1934 from the University of Chicago with a thesis on "A Basis for Residual Polynomials in n Variables." This was published in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 37, No. 2. (March, 1935), pp. 216-225 [Abstract, Article]. Litzinger became chair of the mathematics department at Mount Holyoke in 1937 and was promoted to full professor in 1942. At the time of her death, the Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin spoke of "the way Marie had built up the Math Department and encouraged the close co-operation between the Math Departments of Smith, Amherst and Mt. Holyoke."

References

  1. Louise Ginstein. "Some 'Forgotten' Women of Mathematics: A Who was Who," Philosophia Mathematica 13/14 (1976/77), 73-78.
  2. Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, Summer 1952, p12.
  3. Helen Brewster Owens Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
  4. Obituaries, New York Times (April 8, 1952) and New York Herald Tribune (April 8, 1952)
  5. Author Profile at zbMath
  6. Mathematics Genealogy Project

Photo Credit: Photos courtesy of the Archives and Special Collections, Mount Holyoke College.