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C.F. Craig and F. Owens were Assitant Professors for about 20 years, from around 1910 to 1930. Craig had earned his Ph.D. at Cornell and he supervised one Ph.D. He left Cornell in the eraly thirties and stayed in Ithaca. Owens had earned Bachelor at the University of Kansas where he met his fellow student and future wife, Helen Brewster, before obtaining his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. He left in 1927 to become Head of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State College.
V. Snyder was president of the American Mathematical Society, 1927-28. He spoke at 3 International Congres of Mathematicians in 1928 (Bologna), 1932 (Zurich) and 1936 (Oslo). He supervised 43 Ph.D. students including 13 women.
W. Hurwitz supervised 13 Ph.D. students including Florence Mears, Julia Dale, Ralph Agnew and Robert Cameron.
Arthur Ranum early Career took him from Cornell to Chicago to Seattle to Madison and Palo Alto before he received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and join Cornell in 1906.
Walter Carver (1879-1961) was an algebraic geometer who devoted his careeer to teaching. He joined the department in 1907. He served as President of the Mathematical Association of America in 1939-40.
Part of the department on the entrance stairs of White Hall, and W. Hurwitz smoking a cigar in front of White Hall.
Gertrude Blanch became a graduate student at Cornell in 1932 at the age of 35. She earned her Ph.D. under V. Snyder in 1935 with a thesis titled Properties of the Veneroni transformation in 𝑆4.
After serving as office manager for a company in New York, she became one of the leaders of the Mathematical Tables Project founded by the Work progress Adminsitration. She became one of the computational experts of her time. At the end of 1954 she became a senior mathematician at the Aerospace Research Laboratories at the Wright Air Development Center of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. At this time, she was granted security clearance. Her years in Dayon were some of the most productive of her career. In 1962-1963, she was promoted to Senior Government Scientist, became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received the Air Force Exceptional Service Award. In 1964, she received the Federal Woman's Award from President Lyndon Johnson at the White House.
After 1935, the department went through a rapid renewal. Some of the new arrival are highlighted below. Here is the composition of the department in 1938:
• Professors: R.P. Agnew, W. B. Carver, W. A. Hurwitz.
• Assistant Professors: B.W. Jones, V.S. Lawrence, W.W. Flexner, R. J. Walker and J.A.F. Randolph.
• Instructors (with Ph.D.): D.C. Lewis, J.K.L. MacDonald, J.H. Curtiss, J.B. Rosser and J.W. Givens.
Below you can watch a short videoon Gertrude Blanch's life.
Gertrude Blanch .mp4
William W. Flexner (1904-1993), a student of S. Lefschetz came to Cornell in 1934.
Robert Walker, another student of S. Lefschetz arrived at Cornell in 1935. He served as Chair form 1950 to 1960.
J. Barkley Rosser, a student of A. Church, came to Cornell in 1936. He had many interests and created the Cornell logic group.
Through rather fortuituous circumstances, Mark Kac joined Cornell during the summer of 1939 for one year only. He became a regular faculty and stay 22 years until 1961.
Ralph Agnew (1900-1986) joined Cornell as a graduate student in 1925 and earned his Ph.D. under W. Hurwitz in 1930. After two years on a National Research Fellowship (he spent time at Cincinnati, Brown and Princeton), he returned to Cornell as a faculty. In 1940, he became Chair of the department and served in this position for the entire decade. He help the department naviguate through the difficult period of World War II. At the end of his tenure as Chair, the department was in an excellent position on the National and Interntional mathematical stage.
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