Talk given at Some snapshots of Women in Mathematical History Panel, CMS winter meeting 2021, December 7 Title: Women mathematicians with PhD in the interwar Poland Abstract: In this talk we will present profiles of a few women who earned PhD degrees in mathematics or its applications in the academic institutions of Warsaw, Lwow and Poznan between the two world wars.

1. Women PhD in mathematics in the interwar Poland
Margaret Stawiska-Friedland1
stawiska@umich.edu
1AMS/Mathematical Reviews, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
CMS Winter Meeting, December 7, 2021
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2. Summary
We will present profiles of a few women who earned PhD degrees in
mathematics or related areas in the academic institutions of Warsaw,
Lwow and Poznan between the two world wars. We will discuss their
achievements in the broader social context.
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3. Higher education in the interwar Poland
In 1918 Poland regained independence and was reunited (with some
territorial losses) after 126 years of being partitioned among 3
neighboring powers: Russia, Austro-Hungary and Prussia (Germany).
The March 1921 Constitution guaranteed equal women rights.
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4. Higher education in the interwar Poland
In 1918 Poland regained independence and was reunited (with some
territorial losses) after 126 years of being partitioned among 3
neighboring powers: Russia, Austro-Hungary and Prussia (Germany).
The March 1921 Constitution guaranteed equal women rights.
State institutions of higher education with full academic rights in the
independent Poland: Jagiellonian U. (Kraków; est. 1364), Jan
Kazimierz U. (Lwów, est. 1661), U. of Warsaw (est. 1816, repolonized
1915), U. of Poznań (est. 1919), Stefan Batory U. in Wilno (est. 1579,
closed 1832, reest. 1919), Lwów Polytechnics (est. 1844), Warsaw
Polytechnics (est. 1915), Academy of Fine Arts (Kraków, est. 1818),
Main School of Rural Economy (Warsaw, est.1816), Academy of
Mining (Kraków, est. 1937). There were also other academic-level
schools, state and private, altogether 30 schools (not counting
theological seminaries or yeshivas). In 1938 there were 47,739
students; women comprised about 33% of this number.
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6. Stanisława Nikodymowa (neé Liliental; 1897-1988), I
PhD 1925 at U. of Warsaw.
Thesis Sur les coupures du
plain faites par les ensem-
bles connexes et les continus,
Fundamenta Mathematicae
7 (1925), pp. 15-23. Super-
visor unknown (likely Stefan
Mazurkiewicz).
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7. Stanisława Nikodymowa, II
Enrolled at U. of Warsaw in 1916. Returned to her studies after having
taught basic classes in mathematics to army recruits. Besides
mathematics she studied painting and was an accomplished artist.
Married mathematician Otto Nikodym (1887-1974) in 1924. 1928-1930
they both studied in Paris. Worked first as a librarian in the
Mathematical Study Room at the Warsaw Scientific Society, then as an
assistant at Warsaw Polytechnics in Franciszek Leja’s chair until Leja’s
return to Kraków 1936. Published several articles and textbooks.
During WWII engaged in clandestine teaching. In 1946 the Nikodyms
emigrated, first to Belgium, then to the USA. Otto became a professor
of mathematics at Kenyon College, Stanisława taught there in 1940s.
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8. Halina Milicer-Grużewska (1901-1981)
PhD at University of Warsaw in 1927. Supervisor Stefan Mazurkiewicz,
thesis “O różniczkowaniu całek Jacksona” [On differentiation of
Jackson integrals]). Before WWII she worked as a teacher and a clerk
in Warsaw. After the war she taught at the U. of Warsaw, SGGW (Main
School of Rural Economy) and the Mathematical Institute of Polish
Academy of Sciences. Got habilitation in 1957.
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9. Sala Weinlös (1903-1941?)
PhD 1926 at Jan Kazimierz University (Lwów); supervisor Hugo
Steinhaus. Thesis O niezależności aksjomatów grup I, II i IV od układu
aksjomatów geometrii euklidesowej 3-wymiarowej [On independence
of axioms of group I, II and IV of the system of axioms of 3-dimensional
euclidean geometry], Fund. Math. 11:1 (1928) 206-221. Published
another paper in Fundamenta Mathematicae, 15:1 (1930). 310-312.
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10. Lidia Seipeltówna (1898-1951); later Lawȩcka
Taught in the Da̧brówka women high school. PhD: 1926 (U. of
Poznań); supervisor Zdzisław Krygowski. After PhD worked as an
assistant at the U. of Poznań.
Publications: 1. Recherches numeriques sur la méthode de la
quadrature mêcanique de Gauss, B. Inter. Ac. Sc. B (1928), p. 53;
2. Sur une équation résolvante de l’ équation de l’icosaedre, Bull. Soc.
Amis. Sci. Poznań B.4(1930), 10-18. (with Z. Krygowski; about
expressing roots of a quintic equation by some modular functions
(through the icosahedron equation, originated by F. Klein).
Active in the Polish Mathematical Society: gave several talks in local
meetings, served as the Poznań section secretary.
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11. Janina Hosiasson (1899-1942), later
Hosiasson-Lindenbaum, I
PhD at the Faculty of Philos-
ophy of U. of Warsaw 1926.
Supervisor Tadeusz Kotar-
biński. Thesis Uprawnienie
rozumowania indukcyjnego
[Justification of inductive rea-
soning]; Part I was published
as Definicje rozumowania
indukcyjnego [Definitions of
inductive reasoning], Przegla̧d
Filozoficzny 31.4 (1928), pp.
110-128.
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12. Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaum II
Hosiasson-Lindenbaum worked on induction, analogy and on
paradoxes of probability. In 1929/30 she studied in Cambridge.She
gave a talk at the International Congress of Scientific Philosophy in
Paris in 1935 on the issues of probability. She taught high school in
Warsaw and some classes at the university, e.g. recitation classes for
Jerzy Neyman’s lectures in probability and translated Bertrand
Russell’s books into Polish. Married logician Adolf Lindenbaum
(1904-1941) in 1935. In 1939 the Lindenbaums managed to escape to
Eastern Poland, occupied by USSR. Adolf taught at the Pedagogical
Institute in Białystok, Janina taught at the U. of Wilno (Vilnius). After
the German invasion of USSR in 1941 they were arrested and killed.
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13. A delayed PhD
Hanna Szmuszkowicz (1910-1993) got her Master’s degree in 1931
from the University of Warsaw. Working as a teacher she published a
few research papers, alone or jointly with Stefan Mazurkiewicz. In one
of them (joint with Mazurkiewicz) she gave a proof of the identity
principle for quasianalytic functions. Since 1937 she lectured at the
Free Polish University. During the World War II she was involved in
clandestine teaching. After the war she worked at the University of
Łódź and Łódź Pedagogical College. She got her PhD in 1950 at the
University of Warsaw for the thesis she submitted already in 1937,
O funkcjach quasi analitycznych [On Quasi Analytic Functions]. In the
years 1954-1962 she worked at the University of Warsaw and at
IMPAN, later she headed the division of education of mathematics
teachers at the Instytut Kształcenia Nauczycieli [Institute for Education
of Teachers].
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14. It is worth mentioning some women with PhDs in “border areas” doing
work related to mathematics.
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15. Karolina Iwaszkiewicz (1902-1999), later Gintowt, I
Since 1921 she worked a junior assistant in Astronomy Group at the
Stefan Batory University, under Władysław Dziewulski. This resulted in
her publishing a paper in astronomy. In 1926 she started her studies at
Main School of Rural Economy (SGGW) in Warsaw and graduated
with honors in horticultural engineering in 1931. Her thesis, supervised
by Jerzy Neyman, was the basis of their joint publication Counting
virulent bacteria and particles of virus, Acta Biologiae Experimentalis 6
(1931), 110-142. In the years 1929-1938 she worked at SGGW; in
1928-37 also in Biometrics Laboratory at M. Nencki Institute.
PhD 1934 at SGGW. Thesis Uogólnienie metody korelacji wielorakiej
na przypadek gdy eliminowana zmienna jest niemierzalna [A
Generalization of the Method of Multiple Correlation to the Case when
the Eliminated Variable is not Measurable]. Supervisor Michał
Korczewski (a botanist and plant physiologist), Mazurkiewicz on the
examining committee; promotion 1938.
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16. Karolina Iwaszkiewicz-Gintowt (1902-1999), II
Iwaszkiewicz taught theory of statistics and advanced mathematics to
the students in the Faculties of Horticulture and Agriculture of SGGW.
She published several papers, some with Neyman, and one jointly with
Neyman and Stanisław Kołodziejczyk: Statistical problems in
agricultural experimentation, Supplement to the Journal of the Royal
Statistical Society 2 (1935), no. 2, pp. 107-180. After Neyman’s
emigration she headed the Group of Mathematical Statistics at SGGW
in 1936/37. In 1938 she moved back to Wilno and in 1938-1943
worked there at the Centralne Biuro Statystyczne Zarza̧du Miejskiego
[Central Statistical Office of the City Executive Board]. In the years
1952-1959 Iwaszkiewicz was a senior lecturer in the Chair of Botany at
the State Pedagogical Institute of Vilnius. She repatriated to Poland in
1959 and took a position of an adiunkt (assistant professor) at the
Instytyt Upraw, Nawożenia i Gleboznawstwa [Institute of Soil Science
and Plant Cultivation] in Puławy. In 1963 she was transferred to its
branch in Warsaw. Retired in 1964.
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17. Józefina Spinnerówna (1904-1969), later Josephine
Mehlberg, I
In 1927 submitted a thesis
Rozumowanie matematyczne a
logika tradycyjna [Mathematical
reasoning and traditional logic]
at Jan Kazimierz University
(Lwów). No direct record of
her being awarded PhD! In a
letter to Roman Ingarden dated
February 11, 1928, Kazimierz
Twardowski (the likely supervi-
sor) wrote that the promotion
had taken place.
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18. Józefina Spinnerówna (1904-1969), later Josephine
Mehlberg, II
Spinnerówna married the philosopher Henryk Mehlberg (1904-1979)
before 1939. In 1938 she studied in Paris on a scholarship. During
WWII the Mehlbergs adopted false identities because of their Jewish
origins. Józefina took part in Polish resistance. After the war they
emigrated to Canada and then to the USA. Henryk became a
professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and Josephine
became a professor of mathematics at the Illinois Institute of
Technology in Chicago. She published papers on probability,
mechanics and philosophy of mathematics and supervised 2 PhDs.
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19. Other PhDs close to mathematics
Milena Rudnicka (Rudnytska-Lysiak, 1892-1976), an Ukrainian
political and social activist, teacher and journalist, got her PhD in 1918
at Jan Kazimierz University (Lwów). Her thesis was titled Rola
matematyki w estetyce Albertiego. Przyczynek do zbadania
matematycznych podstaw sztuki i estetyki wczesnego odrodzenia [The
role of mathematics in Alberti’s aesthetic. A contribution to
mathematical investigation of foundations of art and aesthetic of early
Renaissance] (supervisor unknown; from the circle of Kazimierz
Twardowski—likely Twardowski himself or Władysław Witwicki). A
deputy to the lower house of Parliament of the Republic of Poland
1928-1935 representing the Ukrainian minority. Also a deputy to the
League of Nations in Geneve. One of leaders of the Ukrainian women
movement. Since 1939 in emigration; died in Munich.
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20. Izydora Da̧mbska (1904-1983) got her PhD in 1927 with Kazimierz
Twardowski at Jan Kazimierz University. In 1930, traveling on a stipend
from the National Cultural Fund, she visited Moritz Schlick (1882-1936)
in Vienna and Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953) in Berlin. She dealt
with truth of scientific laws and classification of reasonings, and gave a
logical analysis of analogy (as a homomorphism between structures).
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21. Izydora Da̧mbska (1904-1983) got her PhD in 1927 with Kazimierz
Twardowski at Jan Kazimierz University. In 1930, traveling on a stipend
from the National Cultural Fund, she visited Moritz Schlick (1882-1936)
in Vienna and Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953) in Berlin. She dealt
with truth of scientific laws and classification of reasonings, and gave a
logical analysis of analogy (as a homomorphism between structures).
During WWII she worked in libraries in Lwów and was involved in
clandestine teaching. After WWII she worked in Gdańsk and Poznań,
but in 1949 was banned from university teaching by the communist
authorities. Extraordinary professor since 1955. After October 1956
she was allowed to take a chair of philosophy at Jagiellonian
University. In 1964 she was made to transfer to the Institute of
Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The first
woman to be named member of the Institut International de
Philosophie. The last representative of the Lwów philosophical school.
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22. Seweryna Łuszczewska-Romahnowa (1904-1978) studied
mathematics and philosophy in Lwów. After getting her PhD in
philosophy in 1932 with Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz at Jan Kazimierz
University, she worked as an assistant in the First Chair of Philosophy
and as a gymnasium teacher. After WWII, as a professor in Poznań,
she published on classification systems, generalized Venn diagrams,
induction and probability, and history of logic. Supervised 3 PhDs.
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23. Maria Kokoszyńska-Lutmanowa (1905-1981) studied philosophy and
mathematics in Lwów. After getting her PhD in philosophy in 1938 with
Twardowski at Jan Kazimierz University (Lwów), she became an
assistant to Ajdukiewicz. She dealt with analysis of sentential
functions, distinction between deductive and non-deductive sciences
and logic of knowledge. She met Wittgenstein in Cambridge and took
part in Vienna Circle meetings during her stay in Vienna in 1934/35.
Early on, she recognized the significance of Tarski’s semantic theory of
truth. Working together with Karl Popper (1902-1994) she helped
translating Tarski’s article on truth into German. She made further
developments in this theory. After WWII she got her habilitation in
Poznań in 1947 and became a professor of logic at the Wrocław
University (formerly Breslau).
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24. SOME DATA:
Polish academic schools followed the Humboldt (German and
Austrian) model.
1918-1939: 1000 habilitations, 3150 doctorates, 83 000 master’s
diplomas and equivalent.
45 doctorates in mathematics at U. of Warsaw
1939: 700 professors, 600 docents, 2100 junior/auxiliary academic
employees.
Professorial chairs in mathematics: 23. Assistantships in mathematics:
27.
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25. Estimate of most important needs of the Polish state academic schools
in 1938: 11,380, 000 zloty. Budget assignment: 1,941,300 zloty.
128 research institutions outside academia, including 13 state
research institutes
Population of the II Republic of Poland: 32, 107, 000 (census 1931);
34, 849,000 (1938)
Ethnicities (1931, according to the first language): Poles 68.9%;
Ukrainians 13.9%; Jews 8.6%; Belarussians 3.1 %; Germans 2.3%;
other or undeclared 3.2%.
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26. State high schools (1935) 47,5% boys, 15,5% girls, 37%
coeducational.
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