The Archives of American Mathematics at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History collects, preserves, and provides access to mathematical records for use by historians, educators, mathematicians, and others who are interested in the history and development of mathematics in the United States. As the only archive in the United States dedicated to preserving mathematics-related collections, the Archives is the premier resource for researchers seeking primary materials in mathematics.
Since 1975, with the archives of two early University of Texas faculty members as the foundation, the archives has grown to encompass a wide swath of the American mathematics landscape. The collections feature mathematical organizations and prominent twentieth century and contemporary mathematicians. From the Mathematical Association of America Records to the Paul Halmos Photograph Collection, from the papers of the first woman president of the MAA, Dorothy Bernstein, to noted geometer and Fourth Dimension scholar, Thomas Banchoff, the Archives seeks to represent the institutions and people who have contributed to the development of American mathematics.
A diverse range of collections and materials document American mathematics. Researchers will find the records of organizations, competitions, and a national society, the professional papers of mathematicians, collections composed of oral histories, correspondence, and films, photographic archives, and art work among the holdings.
The Archives of American Mathematics at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History collects, preserves, and provides access to mathematical records for use by historians, educators, mathematicians, and others who are interested in the history and development of mathematics in the United States. As the only archive in the United States dedicated to preserving mathematics-related collections, the Archives is the premier resource for researchers seeking primary materials in mathematics.
The archives began in 1975 at the Harry Ransom Center. As one component of a broader science collection, they comprised the papers of early University of Texas faculty Harry S. Vandiver and R. L. Moore, and soon grew to include the papers of other mathematics faculty. In 1978, the Mathematical Association of America established the Archives of American Mathematics as its official repository, expanding the collection to include its records. In 1984, the Archives was transferred to the Barker Texas History Center, now the Briscoe Center, to be included in the University Archives, which was thought to be a more suitable home for non-literary material. From 2003 to 2015, the MAA and the Educational Advancement Foundation coordinated efforts to support the Archives, providing funds for an archivist dedicated to the collections. During that period, the Archives’ holdings grew to include collections beyond UT and covering a range of areas, among them education, topology, geometry, group theory, history, and mathematical physics.
Two highlights are the Bryce S. DeWitt Papers and the Cécile DeWitt-Morette Papers, both UT faculty beginning in 1972. The DeWitts were honored physicists known for, among other accomplishments, leading a scientific expedition to Mauritania in 1973 to test Einstein’s general relativity theory of gravity during a total solar eclipse. Analysis of the glass plate photographs they took during the expedition later proved that light rays from stars had been “bent” by the sun’s gravity, just as Einstein had predicted with his theory. The original plates from the experiment, as well as other materials that document the DeWitts’ professional lives, make up their papers.
Mathematics Education
Several collections document mid-century mathematics education, especially the movement to reform how mathematics was taught. The Mathematical Association of America Records reflect the organization’s active role in the research and support of college mathematics education, with film and documents, while the School Mathematics Study Group Records provide insight into the development of the influential “New Math” curriculum reform of the 1960s.
The Max Beberman Film Collection complements the SMSG Records with its 47 films of Max Beberman teaching high school mathematics as part of the University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics, which participated in mathematics education reform. In addition, many of the collections in the archives contain students’ class notes and professors’ lecture notes, which researchers use to study changes in teaching mathematics over time.
Visual Resources
Photographs offer a rich resource for researchers using the Archives. Collections hold over 20,000 photographs, including images of well-known twentieth-century mathematicians. The largest such group is the Paul R. Halmos Photograph Collection. Halmos was a renowned teacher and expositor of mathematics. He also was known to carry a camera with him everywhere, and with it he captured nearly 15,000 snapshots of events and colleagues, including Paul Erdős, Olga Taussky-Todd, David Blackwell, George Pólya, Emil Artin, Anneli Lax, and many others.
American Mathematical Community
The Archives offers unique opportunities to study how the American mathematical community of the twentieth century functioned, as well as the role of mathematics and its practitioners in society. The R. L. Wilder Papers include correspondence and photographs that document William S. Claytor, a promising young African American topologist, who earned a Ph.D. in 1930 at the University of Pennsylvania, and who faced pervasive discrimination in pursuit of his career. Other mathematicians represented in the Archives, such as Max Dehn, were active during World War II. Their papers reveal the involvement of mathematicians in the war effort, the reception of refugee scientists into the American academic community, and the influence of war on the development of American mathematics.
Oral histories provide another resource for understanding the history of mathematics in America. Interviews with individual mathematicians, such as William Howard and Melvin Henriksen, provide personal perspectives on their careers, while the Finite Simple Group Theory Oral History Collection offers perspectives on a field, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Oral History Project Records provide insights into teaching mathematics.
Adapted from The Collections: The University of Texas at Austin, 2015. Updated 2020.
The Briscoe Center houses a number of archives related to the AMM, including:
- Mathematical Association of America Records.
- Thomas F. Banchoff Papers document a career of teaching, writing, and making mathematical films.
- Marion Walter Photograph Collection includes photographs of A.A. Albert, H.S.M. Coxeter, Paul Erdős, Fritz John, D.H. Lehmer, Alexander Ostrowski, George Polya, Mina Rees, and Olga Taussky-Todd.
- School Mathematics Study Group Records document the history of the “New Math” movement of the 1960s, and includes the files of the director, Edward G. Begle.
- Dorothy L. Bernstein Papers reflect both her professional and personal life.
- Paul R. Halmos Photograph Collection consists of 14,000 photographs Halmos and others took from the 1930s to 2006.
- Ivor Grattan-Guinness Papers reflect the career of a mathematics historian.
- Paul Erdős and Carl Pomerance Correspondence Collection consists of 435 letters between Erdős and Pomerance.
Other collections include:
- Agnew (Jeanne) Papers
- Air Force Operations Analysis Section
- Anderson (Bruce A.) Papers
- Ball (B. J.) Papers
- Beberman (Max) Film Collection
- Biedenharn (Lawrence) Papers
- Bing (R. H.) Papers
- Bruck (R. H.) Papers
- Cheney (E. W.) Papers
- Cleveland (Clark M) Papers
- Conference on Orthogonal Expansions and their Continuous Analogues
- Cooper (Albert Everett) Papers
- Dehn (Max) Papers
- DeWitt (Bryce S.) Papers
- Dijkstra (Edsger W.) Papers
- Dodd (Edward L.) Papers
- Duke Mathematical Journal Records
- Eberlein (W. F.) Papers
- Ettlinger (H. J.) Papers
- Ettlinger (H. J.) Photographs
- Feit (Walter) Papers
- Fuller (Frederick Lincoln) Papers
- Greenwood (R. E.) Papers
- Griffin (John S., Jr.) Papers
- Grosswald (Emil) Papers
- Halsted (George Bruce) Papers
- Hedrick (E. R.) Collection
- Helly (Eduard) Papers
- Henderson (David) Papers
- Henriksen (Melvin) Oral History Collection
- Houston Topology Seminar Records
- Johnson (Gordon) Papers
- Jones (F. Burton) Papers
- Jones (Phillip S.) Papers
- Lane (Ralph E.) Papers
- Linear Algebra and its Applications Records
- Lubben (R. G.) Papers
- Mac Lane (Saunders) Papers
- Macfarlane (Alexander) Collection
- Mathematics of Computation Unpublished Math Tables Collection
- Mechanical Harmonic Synthesizer/Multiharmonograph Collection
- Miksa (Francis L.) Papers
- Moore (R. L.) Legacy Collection
- Moore (R. L.) Papers
- Morrey (Charles Bradfield) Papers
- National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Oral History Project Records
- National Research Council Collection
- Neuberger (J. W.) Papers
- New Mathematical Library Records
- Nikodym (Otton Martin) Papers
- Pettis (B. J.) Papers
- Porter (Gerald J.) Mathematical Publications Collection
- Price (G. Baley) Papers
- Princeton Mathematics Community in the 1930s Oral History Collection
- Rainich (George Yuri) Papers
- Reid (William T.) Papers
- Robinson (Abraham) Papers
- Rosser (J. Barkley) Papers
- Schild (Alfred) Papers
- Schoenberg (I. J.) Papers
- Schoenfeld (Lowell) Papers
- Seever (Galen L.) Papers
- Silverman (Louis Lazarus) Papers
- Steenrod (Norman Earl) Papers
- Stiles (F. A.) Papers
- Truesdell (C.) Papers
- Tucker (Albert William) Papers
- Van Heijenoort (Jean) Papers
- Vandiver (H. S.) Papers
- Von Neumann (John) Papers
- Wall (H. S.) Papers
- Whyburn (Gordon Thomas) Papers
- Whyburn (William M.) Papers
- Wilder (Raymond Louis) Papers
- William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition Records
- Young (David M.) Papers
Please visit our online database for a complete list of finding aids related to our AAM collections.
It is critical to learn from the history of American mathematics in order to effectively move forward with revolutionizing science and technology. As one of a handful of mathematical archives in the United States, the Briscoe Center is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and making sure the archives are readily accessible for research.
The Briscoe Center is seeking gifts to help reach our goal of a $2 million endowment that will support the Archives, including an archivist dedicated to the Archive of American Mathematics (AAM) in perpetuity.
The endowment will provide:
- the salary, benefits, and professional development for the AAM archivist;
- funds to transport donated papers of individuals and records of organizations, as well as process the myriad of formats that document the history of American mathematics;
- a stipend for student interns assisting the AAM archivist;
- resources to support activities and programs associated with collecting, preserving, accessing, curating, and using the AAM.
Learn more about how to help reach the Archive of American Mathematics Endowment goal.
Banner image: R. H. Bing, ca. 1960–69. R. H. Bing Papers. Image detail from di_00787.
