Person: Focke, Anne Lucy Bosworth
Anne Bosworth Focke was an American mathematician who became the first female doctoral student of David Hilbert. She was a professor of mathematics and physics at what is now the University of Rhode Island.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Woonsocket, the town in which Anne was born, was only established one year before her birth when three villages combined to form the town.
- It was in her home town of Woonsocket that Anne Bosworth attended school.
- The year in which Bosworth joined the College was the first in which it had begun to teach courses beyond the secondary school level.
- Bosworth's department consisted of just herself in 1892 but, in 1893, William Elisha Drake was appointed as Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
- Bosworth wanted to study more advanced mathematics and, in the summer of 1894 and of 1896, she studied with Eliakim Hastings Moore and Oskar Bolza for a Master's Degree at the University of Chicago.
- In April 1898, Bosworth was granted leave of absence so that she might attend lectures at the University of Göttingen in Germany.
- Bosworth submitted her 57-page thesis Begründung einer vom Parallelenaxiome unabhängigen Streckenrechnung to the University of Göttingen and her oral examination took place on 31 July 1899.
- Back at Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Bosworth again took up her role as Professor of Mathematics.
- While in Göttingen he and Bosworth had met.
- It is with regret that the institution loses Miss Bosworth from the faculty.
- Alfred Bosworth Focke was born on 30 September 1906.
- Anne Focke contacted pneumonia and died at the age of thirty-eight.
Born 29 September 1868, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, USA. Died 15 May 1907, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Usa, Women
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
