Instructing the Mathematical Imagination

This book examines the creation and character of mathematical training at Bryn Mawr College between 1885 and 1926 under the leadership of Charlotte Angas Scott. Though designated as a college, Bryn Mawr boasted the world’s first graduate degree programs in which women taught women. Through detailed analysis of Scott’s publications, student dissertations, and institutional records - including the college’s Journal Club Notebooks - the author reconstructs how a sustained, collaborative, and visually grounded style of mathematics emerged in this setting. Rather than focusing on biographical exceptionalism, the study situates Scott and her students within broader shifts in the American mathematical community, including changing access to education, publication, and professional networks.

Following Scott’s own trajectory from England to the United States, the chapters explore the development of the mathematics department and trace themes such as algebraic representation in geometry, refined visual intuition, and early topology. The work addresses institutional constraints and the pedagogical means through which students learned to do original mathematics in a time of limited professional opportunity.

The book rewards those interested in the disciplinary, epistemological, and material conditions of mathematical research. The technical content is within the reach of advanced undergraduate students. It is of particular value to historians of science, historians of gender, scholars of mathematics education, and practicing geometers and topologists curious about the histories of their fields.