History of the Department of Mathematics

1888- 1899:

Alexander Ziwet and Frank N. Cole join the department in 1888. Ziwet remained until 1925 and was a major influence through his courses, donation of many books to the library and a generous bequest, which funds the Ziwet lectures. Cole left in 1895. While at Michigan, he wrote papers on group theory and had as a student and colleague G. A. Miller, who published many papers on group theory. Both Ziwet and Cole were much involved with the formation of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), of which Cole was secretary from 1896 to 1920. The department's Mathematics Club began before 1891 in Ziwet's parlor. In 1895 James W. Glover joins the department, remaining until 1937. He developed a strong program in actuarial mathematics. He served as chair from 1926 until 1934.

1900-1910:

Walter B. Ford joins the department. He wrote on asymptotic series and summability theory, wrote textbooks and strengthened the curriculum. He was active in the AMS and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), of which he was President in 1927-1928. He became very wealthy through investments and made gifts to the MAA; his son later gave a large sum to the MAA to create the Walter B. Ford Lecture Fund.
The separation of mathematics instruction for engineering students begins in 1901, with Alexander Ziwet in charge. This lasted until 1928 and led to mathematics offices in successive engineering buildings. By 1909 the department has grown to 20 faculty. The curriculum includes Fourier series and spherical harmonics, ordinary and partial differential equations, theory of substitutions, theory of numbers, theory of invariants, potential theory, courses for teachers.

In 1909, Theophil H. Hildebrandt joins the department, to remain until 1957, serving as chair from 1934 to 1957. He was a student of E. H. Moore in Chicago and did important work in functional analysis and integration theory. In 1923 he gave the first general proof of the principle of uniform boundedness for Banach spaces and in 1928 he published a basic paper on the spectral theory of compact operators. He was the first recipient of the Chauvenet Prize of the MAA and was President of the AMS in 1945-1946. He was honored by the T. H. Hildebrandt Assistant Professorships in the department.

1911-1925:

The first Ph.D. was granted in the department in 1911. The recipient was W. O. Mendenhall, who wrote on divergent series under Ford. By 1941, ninety Ph.D.s had been granted. In 1916 Harry Carver joins the department, to remain until 1961. He had a major influence on the field of statistics; he personally started the Annals of Mathematical Statistics and had a leading part in the founding of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. By 1920, the curriculum expanded to include courses in applied mathematics: vector analysis, hydrodynamics, elasticity, celestial mechanics; also courses in infinite series and products, divergent series, history of mathematics, graphical methods. Ruel V. Churchill joins the department in 1922, to remain until 1966. He did much for the applied mathematics program and had wide influence through his books on applied analysis.

1926-1939:

George Y. Rainich and Raymond L. Wilder join the department in 1926, to remain until 1956 and 1968 respectively. Both did much to strengthen the department in many ways: in particular, by introduction of more seminars and colloquia. Rainich wrote on relativity theory and differential geometry, Wilder was an outstanding topologist, author of "Topology of Manifolds" (AMS Colloquium Publication), had many Ph. D. students. He was President of the AMS in 1955-1956 and of the MAA in 1965-1966. Rainich ran an "orientation seminar" for graduate students and thereby encouraged many to follow fruitful careers in mathematics. Wilder was active in at least one `secret' group organized to discuss current research. He and W. L. Ayres, who was in the department from 1929 to 1941, ran a 2-week Topology Congress in June of 1940, which led to an important publication. During the 1930s, several influential faculty members joined the department: Robert C. F. Bartels in applied mathematics, who later became the first director of the University's Computing Center; Herman H. Goldstine, in functional analysis, who later worked with von Neumann in developing the digital computer; Sumner B. Myers, in differential geometry and functional analysis; Cecil J. Nesbitt in algebra and actuarial mathematics (a field in which he had major influence), Robert M. Thrall in algebra.

1940-1950:

In 1940 there were 35 staff members. The years of World War II had a major impact on the University. Enrollments were greatly reduced and some faculty took leave for military research. There were some military training programs on campus. The department  taught some V-12 Navy students and some Air Force officers preparing to be meteorologists; the latter program is reported to have trained some 10,000 officers, when at most 1000 were needed (all because of a misplaced 0). Other faculty include:

George E. Hay, applied mathematics, 1940-1984 
Samuel Eilenberg, topology, 1940-1946
Norman Steenrod, topology, 1942-1947
Erich Rothe, functional analysis, 1944-1965
George Piranian, complex analysis, 1945-1984
Maxwell Reade, complex analysis, 1946-1986
Hans Samelson, topology and geometry, 1946-1960
Phillip Jones, history of mathematics, 1947-1982
Richard Brauer, algebra, 1948-1952
William J. LeVeque, number theory, 1949-1979

1950-1960:

Fred Gehring, in complex analysis, Lamberto Cesari, in calculus of variations, Roger C. Lyndon, in algebra, join the department. In 1952 the Michigan Mathematical Journal is initiated, under the leadership of Rainich, who became excited about "desktop publishing". In 1953 the department sponsors a 2-week conference on complex analysis, attended by major figures in this field and a publication results. H. Chandler Davis, a member of the department, is forced to leave in 1955 because of refusal to answer questions of a Congressional subcommittee on "un-American" activities. (The University is subsequently censured by AAUP for this action, and the whole episode is recalled annually at the Senate Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom.) Raoul Bott joined the department in 1951, and did his most famous work in topology while in Michigan. In 1956, Donald G. Higman in group theory, and Allen Shields in complex and functional analysis, joined the department and spent their careers here. Other faculty include:

Jack E. McLaughlin, algebra and commutative algebra, 1950-1994
Maurice Auslander, commutative algebra and related topics, 1955-1956
James Munkres, topology, 1955-1957
Allen Mayerson, mathematics of finance,  1956-1971
Helmut Schaefer, functional analysis, 1959-1963
Reinhold Remmert, complex analysis of several variables,  1959-1960

1960-1970:

A number of distinguished mathematicians join the department in various areas. The influx of research areas leads to an increase in and diversity in seminars, conferences and invited lectures. Digital computing is beginning to affect courses, research, and departmental operations. The Actuarial Program continues to thrive under the direction of Donald Jones and Cecil Nesbitt. The number of faculty increased to 84 in 1965, and decreased soon thereafter because of transfer of some staff to computer science and formation of a separate Statistics Department in 1969. Other faculty include:

Paul Halmos, logic and analysis, famous for his expositions, 1960-1969
Leonard Jimmie Savage, statistics, 1960-1965
Donald Lewis, number theory, 1961-2000 
Frank Raymond, topology, 1962-1997
Ronald Douglas, functional analysis and operator algebras, 1962-1970
Peter Duren, mathematical analysis, related to one complex variable, 1962- 2010
Thomas Greville, statistical analysis, 1962-1963
Carl Pearcy, Jr.,  operator theory and operator algebras, 1968-1993
Harold Seymour Shapiro, approximation theory and complex analysis, 1963-1972
John Howard Smith, voting theory and number theory, 1963-1966
Joel  Smoller, partial differential equations, 1963-2017
Harold Stark,  number theory, 1964-69
B. Alan Taylor, complex analysis of several variables, 1965-2009 
Thomas Storer, string theory, 1965-2001
Harold Davenport, number theory, 1966
Heini Halberstam, analytic number theory, 1966
Cleve Moler, numerical analysis, 1966-1972
Herbert Robbins, statistics, co-author of the book with Courant "What is Mathematics", 1966-70
Jeff Cheeger, differential geometry, 1968-69
William Jaco, topology, 1968-72
James Milne, arithmetic geometry, 1969-99

1970-1980:

Frederick Gehring becomes chair in 1973, and while alternating terms with Allen Shields, holds the position until 1984. During this time, the faculty numbers 65, and due to limited funding opportunities, the number of graduate students and undergraduate majors declined over the decade. The department hires 8 new faculty members, several of whom were leaders in their fields. Other faculty include*:

Carl DeBoor,  numerical analysis,  1970-1971
Michael Taylor, partial differential equations, 1970-76
Peter  Weinberger, computer science, 1970-76
Jeffrey  Rauch, partial differential equations, 1971-2015
Hugh Montgomery, analytic number theory, 1972-2020
Carl  Simon, complex systems, 1972-2020
George Fix, the theory of finite elements, 1973-1975
Spencer Bloch,  algebraic geometry and algebraic K-theory, 1974-76
Ronald DiPerna, nonlinear partial differential equations, 1974-1978
Dianne Prost O'Leary, computer science, 1975-1980
Melvin Hochster, commutative algebra, 1977-2022
Thomas Farrell, geometric topology, 1978-1985
Krishnaswami Alladi, number theory, 1978-1981
Igor Dolgachev, algebraic geometry, 1978-2011
(*does not include current faculty who are still active)

1980-1990:

Donald Lewis becomes chair in 1984 and holds the position until 1994. The department initiated a program of three-year, term-limited postdoctoral instructorships in 1986 that continues today. The Undergraduate Mathematics Office was established, along with the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, helping to strengthen the undergraduate experience. Other faculty include*:

Tudor Stefan Rațiu, geometric mechanics and dynamical systems,  1980-1983
Helmut Maier, analytic number theory, 1981-1984
Patricia D. Shure, mathematics education, 1982-2006
David Masser,  transcendental number theory and Diophantine analysis, 1983-1992
Laurent Clozel, number theory, 1985-1989
John Harer, topology, 1985-1993
Philip Hanlon, combinatorics, 1986-2013
John Lott, differential geometry, 1987-2009
Peter Scott, topology, 1987-2018
John Stembridge, combinatorics, 1988-2020
Tobias Stafford, algebra, 1989-2008 
(*does not include current faculty who are still active)

1990-2000:

A significant revision of the introductory calculus program is undertaken by Mort Brown and Pat Shure. “Michigan calculus” emphasizes the learning experience, involving extensive instructor training, smaller classes, and a team approach to problem solving. The program receives many accolades for the effectiveness of its instruction. B.A. Taylor becomes chair in 1994, and serves two terms. There was an emphasis on enhancing the undergraduate experience, with the implementation of the undergraduate math club, the annual Career Conference, and the opening of the Nesbitt Undergraduate Common Room. Curtis Huntington is hired in 1994 to lead the Actuarial Program into the new century. The period 1997-1999 saw the development and establishment of the Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics (AIM) graduate program. While a member of the department in 1998, Tom Hales proposes a solution to the 400 year old Kepler Conjecture. William Fulton comes to Michigan, filling the Keeler Professorship, and Hyman Bass joins the department, joint with the School of Education. The Michigan Math Scholars summer program for high school students was established, and later expands as the Michigan Math and Science Scholars. In 1996, the department, that was once split into two and sometimes more buildings, is able to come together under one roof with the move to a permanent home in East Hall. Other faculty include*:

John Erik Fornæss, several complex variables, 1990-2011
Trevor Wooley, analytic number theory, 1991-2007
Juha Heinonen, geometric function theory, 1992-2007
Gopal Prasad, the theory of Lie groups, 1992-2017
Thomas Hales, number theory and sphere packing, 1993-2002
Ruth Lawrence, knot theory and algebraic topology, 1993-2001
Curtis Huntington,  actuarial mathematics, 1993-2013
Peter Smereka, fluid dynamics to materials science, 1994-2015
Charles R. Doering, stochastic dynamical systems, 1996-2021
Robert Lazarsfeld, algebraic geometry, 1997-2013
William Fulton, algebraic geometry, 1998-2020
Bruce Kleiner, geometric analysis, 1996-2006
Brian Conrad, number theory, 2000-2008
Christopher Skinner, number theory, 2000-2007
Kannan Soundararajan, analytic number theory, 2000-2007
(*does not include current faculty who are still active)