ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Multiple Histories of British Female Mathematicians in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

• In Event: New Perspective on the Histories of Mathematics

English Abstract

Babbage (2010) tells us that Ada Lovelace deeply understood the mathematics behind his analytic engine. While Stein (1985) argues that Lovelace did not have the necessary mathematical ability to be able to explain how the analytic engine worked. These conflicting perspectives are just a small snapshot of the wide array of views presented on British female mathematicians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, by both contemporaries and later historians.

Following Reichenberger (2023) we will take an intersectional approach to these differing perspectives. Viewing gender, not as an entity with a set definition, but through the lens of the social structure surrounding the lives of female mathematicians. This will allow us to explore these inconsistent narratives and place them in the broader context of mathematical feminist historiography. Using the intersectional lens we will ask if the historiography differs depending on factors other than gender? For example, the class of the women. And can we see any patterns in these shifting perspectives around different mathematicians? This will allow us to start answering how best we should we try to reconcile these conflicting narratives.

References
Babbage, C. (2010, August). Excerpt from “Passages from the Life of a Philosopher”. In H. Babbage (Ed.), Babbage’s Calculating Engines (pp. 83–210). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511694721. 005

Reichenberger, A. (2023). Historiography of Science and Gender. In M. Condé & M. Salomon (Eds.), Handbook for the Historiography of Science (pp. 692–720). Springer International Publishing. https://ebookcentral. proquest.com/lib/open/detail.action?docID=30766867&pq- origsite= primo

Stein, D. (1985). Ada: A life and a legacy. MIT Press.

Author

• Elinor Flavell, The Open University