Minutes of April 30, 2003 Meeting at St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School

Present: Paul Penniman (private tutor), Joan Reinthaler (Sidwell Friends), Susan Harris (Queen Anne), Stan Smith (Norwood), Betty King (Maret), Ayana Touval (Jewish Day), Syamala Chenulu and Ann Lawrence (Capitol Hill Day), Margaret Coffey (Bishop Ireton), Betsy Bennett (St. Albans), and our hosts, Doug Adams, Suzanne Nuckolls, and Gail Johnson (St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes).

Many thanks to Karen Dee Michalowicz of the Langley School who presented many of her historical math textbooks and artifacts. Karen also presents quadrennially to an international group of math historians. Next summer they will meet in Denmark and Sweden. Karen has about 1000 books printed prior to 1900. E-Bay has provided her with many finds. The best time to bid is during college vacations when professors are off-line! What follows are the many interesting nuggets of information she dispensed:

Karen told us about how ancient manuscripts required the skins of 20 sheep to make a single book. She explained how interesting the frontispieces of old books are. They are beautiful, and the same frontispiece has appeared in several books. She showed us a 1574 Christopher Clavius (also designer of Gregorian calendar) the first "reform" edition of Euclid, a book designed for professors.

Books prior to the United States Civil War were printed on rag paper and are in better shape than post-Civil War books printed on pulp paper. She showed us an Italian book designed for military personnel written by Tartaglia who wrote on quadratic and cubic equations; the book is the first time mathematics was applied to weaponry.

A non-math book that Karen showed us was a book of Ovid, "Metamorphosis," bound with two others, published in 1559.

Before the middle of the l9th century, students did their work in copybooks called "cipher books." They would copy rules in their books and practice problems on a slate. Student cipher books were much treasured.

Karen also showed us her collection of "math trading cards." During the early twentieth century, Dutch chocolates would include cards of mathematicians. She showed us Gauss on a Deutsche Mark with his normal curve on the back of the bill.

Karen talked about a favorite of hers, three small French algebra books designed for women from 1789. The books were approved by the King in the same year of the French Revolution.

There was no graphing in the early days of math textbooks but lots of systems of equations.

Colonists used to get reprints from English textbooks. Nathaniel Pike was the first American born author. Charles Davies in the mid 19th century was known to use others works as his own.

Karen showed us an 1807 Pennsylvania Dutch (German) primer printed in Reading, Pa.

Karen also collects interesting and "politically incorrect" word problems. She read us a funny addition word problem from a children's primer about farmers, some of whom drank alcohol and "got miserable." She mentioned that using "Hands-On" was not new to the 20th century. Emerson and Colburn both wrote books with pictures and suggested physical resources, called "object learning." Warren Colburn also wrote an 1830's algebra book, considered a "reform" book because it went beyond just learning rules. Colburn stressed analytical thinking. In Colburn's Algebra can also be found percentage word problems about slave ownership.

Karen noted that since there were no schools for teachers, many texts included some pedagogical discourse in the beginning of books.


Karen showed us Karpinsky's Bibliography of books printed in the Americas from 1500 - 1850. It is the bible for book collectors such as she. Karen also spoke about a Spanish Colonial book, the oldest printed in the Americas in the mid 1500's, with currency conversion tables, also with thirteen pages of algebra. She has a facsimile of the book.

Karen mentioned the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California, which is an excellent place to browse, although you need to book reading privileges ahead of time. (Take note: the NCTM in 2005 is in Anaheim!) For the novice, "Stamping Through Mathematics," by Robin J. Wilson (MAA) is a good introduction to mathematics history. American University in DC also has an excellent math collection.

Then there was ISMAW business: We have new upper school meet writers, Nathan Ryan and Eric Steadman (Sidwell ’86). Nathan did graduate work at Dartmouth for two years, taught at Sidwell for two years and is now back at Dartmouth in a doctoral program in number theory. Eric is a Yale grad and taught at Sidwell for five years. He is a fulltime grad student at George Washington. They have been promised $1200 for their fee for the year.

An English group of schools around Bristol, England would like to share the ’03-’04 ISMAW questions.

Next year’s officers: Syamala and Ayana will coordinate meetings. Paul will remain secretary with help with note-taking at meetings. Nancy Wright of NPS will remain treasurer. Joan will coordinate upper school meets, Peter Aleksiewicz of Landon will be the scorekeeper.

We also discussed various meet dates and sites which have been resolved in subsequent electronic communication. Then we had fun perusing Karen’s stuff!

--Paul