Helen Abbot Merrill

Helen Abbot Merrill (March 30, 1864 – May 1, 1949) was an American mathematician, educator and textbook author. She was chair of the mathematics department at Wellesley College, where she taught from 1893 to 1932.

Early life and education Merrill was born on March 30, 1864, in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey. Her father George Merrill was a New Jersey insurance claims adjustor; her mother was Emily Dodge Abbot Merrill. She lived in Newburyport, Massachusetts, for some of her childhood. She entered Wellesley College in 1882; she intended to major in Greek and Latin, but switched to mathematics after one year, and graduated in 1886.

Her younger brother William P. Merrill was a noted Presbyterian minister, hymn writer, and pacifist.

Career Merrill taught at girls' schools in New York and Pennsylvania after college. She rebuilt Wellesley's collection of cardboard mathematical models, after a fire destroyed the original set.

She became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1911. In 1920 she was appointed vice-president of the Mathematical Association of America.

Publications Merrill wrote two textbooks with her Wellesley colleague Clara Eliza Smith: Selected Topics in Higher Algebra (Norwood, 1914) and A First Course in Higher Algebra (Macmillan, 1917). She also wrote a book titled Mathematical Excursions in 1933, meant to explain some mathematical concepts to a young audience.

Personal life Merrill died in 1949, at the age of 85, in Wellesley, Massachusetts.