Person: Hellman, Clarisse Doris
Doris Hellman was an American historian of Science.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- We will get a better understanding of Doris's upbringing if we give some further details of her parents.
- Alfred Hellman was born on 8 September 1880 in New York, to Myer Hellman and Amelia Bernheim.
- Doris Hellman attended the Horace Mann School from which she graduated with honours in 1926.
- This school, founded in 1887, was originally designed as a laboratory for the Teachers College of Columbia University in New York but, although retaining its links to Columbia University when Hellman studied there, it was by that time not being used as a laboratory for Columbia.
- Situated at 120th Street in Morningside Heights, it was a girls school when Hellman was a student.
- In 1930, Hellman entered Radcliffe College as a Vassar College Fellow.
- Doris Hellman Pepper was awarded a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1943 for her thesis The Comet of 1577: Its Place in the History of Astronomy.
- The course will be repeated in the academic year 1951-52 by Professor Partridge, Professor Howard Nechamkin and Dr Hellman.
- Although Hellman remained on the faculty at the Pratt Institute until 1966, she also taught as an adjunct professor of history of science at New York University for the years from 1964 to 1966.
- One of Hellman's great achievements was her contribution to the founding of the Metropolitan New York Section of the History of Science Society.
- Three academicians, C Doris Hellman, a historian of science at Pratt Institute and later at Queens College/CUNY, and Carolyn Eisele of Hunter College/CUNY and Carl Boyer of Brooklyn College/CUNY, both mathematicians, provided the principal inspiration and impetus for the new society, along with Lynn Thorndike, the distinguished historian of science at Columbia University, who served as Honorary Chairman during the first decade of the Section.
- Eisele sat between Doris Hellman and Philippe LeCorbeiller and opposite Bern Dibner, none of whom she had met before but all of whom were to influence and support her personally and professionally over the course of a lifetime.
- Doris Hellman and Carolyn Eisele travelled home from Boston by train together the next day, promising to stay in touch, wondering how to "flush out a few historians of science" in New York.
- On February 24, 1953, Doris Hellman sent an announcement to several colleagues proposing to create "a regional section of the History of Science Society, to serve Greater New York." The announcement notes that "in Connecticut a similar section has proved valuable both to its members, by furnishing the opportunity of hearing papers and entering into discussions on the history of science, and to the national society, by introducing new members to its organization." ...
- In a letter several years later, Doris Hellman described the founding of the New York Section: "A small but interested group met in my apartment in March 1953.
- Hellman's brief note to Eisele, dated January 30, 1960, suggested some changes for the announcement of her paper and observed in her inimitable style: "Some day, I'll belong to an organization with a short title (like 'Metropolitan New York Section of the History of Science Society').
- It took me months to learn the full title of IUHPS." Hellman's reputation preceded her, and the meeting generated such enthusiasm that "two hundred students provided cookies." Her paper received recognition in the New Yorker - excellent publicity, introducing the work of a small, esoteric group of scholars to a broad non-professional audience.
- We note that IUHPS, mentioned in this quote, is International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science and Hellman mentions this in January 1960 since she had been appointed by the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council of the United States as a delegate to the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science Congress on the History of Science held in Barcelona and Madrid in September 1959.
- Hellman was the Secretary of this Congress.
- Another important publication by Hellman was 'Kepler, by Max Caspar', which she translated and edited.
Born 28 August 1910, New York City, New York, USA. Died 28 March 1973, New York City, New York, USA.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Astronomy, Origin Usa, Women
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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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
