Queer Places:
Wellesley College (Seven Sisters), 106 Central St, Wellesley, MA 02481
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
Cornell University (Ivy League), 410 Thurston Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850
Hartwick College, 1 Hartwick Dr, Oneonta, NY 13820, United States

Roxana Hayward Vivian (December 9, 1871 - May 31, 1961) was an American mathematician and academic trailblazer born on December 9, 1871, in Hyde Park, Boston, Massachusetts, to parents Roxana Nott and Robert Hayward Vivian. After completing her early education at Hyde Park High School, she attended Wellesley College from 1890 to 1894, graduating with dual degrees in Greek and mathematics. Following four years spent teaching high school in suburban Boston, she pursued advanced graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania as the holder of the Alumnae Fellowship for Women. In 1901, she achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first female recipient of a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania, completing her doctoral thesis titled "Poles of a Right Line with Respect to a Curve of the Order n".

Vivian immediately returned to Wellesley College as an instructor in mathematics, marking her as the first member of her department to hold a Ph.D. Her academic career was characterized by diverse international and domestic leadership roles. From 1906 to 1909, she taught at the American College for Girls (part of Constantinople College) in Istanbul, Turkey, spending her final two years there as acting president. Upon returning to Wellesley, she was appointed as an associate professor in 1908 and advanced to a full professorship in 1918. In addition to her mathematical scholarship, she directed Wellesley's Graduate Department of Hygiene and Physical Education between 1918 and 1921. Following a brief professorship at Cornell University during the 1925–1926 academic year and subsequent friction regarding academic politics at Wellesley, she transitioned to other institutions. She served as a mathematics professor and dean of women at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, from 1929 to 1931, and later worked as a mathematics teacher and dean of girls at Rye Public High School in New York until 1935. Vivian spent her later years in Boston, where she passed away on May 31, 1961.

Regarding her links to Wellesley Faculty and the broader historical context of women's academic communities, institutions like Wellesley College during the late 19th and early 20th centuries were pivotal spaces for professional unmarried women. While historical records do not explicitly document Vivian's personal romantic life, her professional trajectory mirrors that of many prominent academic women of the era—often referred to as "Boston marriages"—who built deeply supportive, independent, and career-focused lives centered around women's colleges and progressive educational reform.

References:

In Adamless Eden: The Community of Women Faculty at Wellesley by Patricia Ann Palmieri

Other references:

• Green, Judy; LaDuke, Jeanne (2009). Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD's. History of Mathematics, Vol. 34. American Mathematical Society, pp. 307–308 (with supplementary biographical material on pp. 618–620).
• Oakes, Elizabeth H. (2002). International Encyclopedia of Women Scientists. New York, NY: Facts on File.
• Leonard, John William, ed. (1914). Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914–1915. American Commonwealth, p. 840.
• Zitarelli, David E. (2019). A History of Mathematics in the United States and Canada: Volume 1: 1492–1900. American Mathematical Society.
• Helen Brewster Owens Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
• Department of Mathematics Scrapbook of the History of the Department. Compiled by Helen A. Merrill, Wellesley College Archives.
• Vivian, Roxana H. (1901). Poles of a Right Line with Respect to a Curve of the Order n. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
• Mathematics Genealogy Project: Profile and doctoral lineage for Roxana Hayward Vivian.
• Science Magazine (1901). "Presentation before the Faculty of Candidates for the Doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania," Science, New Series, Vol. 14, No. 348, pp. 333–338.

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