Clara Latimer Bacon

Clara Latimer Bacon (13 August 1866 – 14 April 1948) was a mathematician and professor of mathematics at Goucher College. She was the first woman to earn a PhD in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University.

Biography Bacon was the daughter of Larkin Crouch Bacon and Louisa Latimer. She was born in Hills Grove, McDonough County, Illinois, the eldest of her parents four children. She also had four other half siblings. Bacon attended North Abingdon High School and begun her college life at Hedding Collegiate Seminary.

She graduated from Hedding College in Abingdon, Illinois, in 1886 with a bachelor's degree (the degree of PhB). She achieved a second bachelor's degree from Wellesley College in 1890. Later, Bacon taught in a private school in Litchfield, Kentucky and in three different schools over seven years. Bacon studied for her master's degree at the University of Chicago, completing her thesis in 1903 and graduating in September 1904, after six summers of study while continuing to work full time at the Woman's College of Baltimore. Her research in her master's and PhD theses was on planar geometry. after working on the faculty from 1897 to 1934. Bacon was a member of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America.

A student hall of residence at Goucher College, Bacon House, is named in her honour.

She died on 14 April 1948, aged 81.