Evelyn Prescott Wiggin

Evelyn Prescott Wiggin (1900–1964) was an American mathematician and university professor. She was one of the few women to earn a PhD in mathematics in the United States before World War II.

Early life Evelyn Prescott Wiggin was born March 1, 1900, in Stratham, New Hampshire, to Margaret Prescott Green and George Herbert Wiggin. Her mother died shortly after giving birth to her second daughter in 1905. She attended the Robinson Seminary public secondary school in Exeter, New Hampshire, and then enrolled in Wellesley College in 1917 where she was a Durant scholar. She graduated as a mathematics major in 1921 and immediately began teaching mathematics at the Massena High School in New York. On March 31, 1931, her Randolph colleague Gillie Larew wrote to Gilbert Ames Bliss, who had been Larew's own doctoral advisor at the University of Chicago, saying, "I want to thank you again for sending us Miss Wiggin and express the hope that we may keep her for a long, long time. She is everything she should be both as teacher and as a person." She remained there until her retirement, though she did take several leaves to teach elsewhere, including at Wellesley College, Emory University and the University of Chicago. Mathematical Association of America Sigma Delta Epsilon American Association of University Women American Association of University Professors Phi Beta Kappa

Personal life On June 20, 1956, at age 56, Evelyn Wiggin married Sidney Casner, a retired lawyer, in Chicago, and took the name Evelyn Wiggin Casner. Sidney Casner died around 1962. Wiggin died at the University of Virginia Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the age of 64 on November 5, 1964.

Selected publications Wiggin, E. P., A boundary value problem of the calculus of variations. In Contributions to the Calculus of Variations, 1933–37, 243-75. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Published version of PhD dissertation. Reviews: JFM 63.0483.03 (H. Boerner); Zbl 017.36203 (L. M. Graves). Review of volume: Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 44:604-09 (A. Dresden). 1937 Wiggin, E., "The value of mathematics in a liberal education". Math. Mag. 19:418. 1945