On November 12, 1860, T. E. Hart arrived at Heidelberg University to pursue doctoral work. Six years later he returned to America having completed a dissertation in mathematics under the supervision of Otto Hesse. He had studied alongside major figures in German mathematics such as Heinrich Weber, Jakob Lüroth, and Max Noether. This was a remarkable achievement. He was one of the first Americans to pursue advanced study in mathematics in Europe. The first math dissertation by an American was only written in 1862, two years after Hart arrived at Heidelberg. Upon his return, Hart was one of the most accomplished mathematicians in the United States. Here we take a look at Hart's life before he went to Germany.
Ultimately, T. E. Hart's education was a product of the massive personal fortunes made possible by the growing cotton economy in the antebellum south. T. E. was born on Kalmia Plantation in Darlington County, South Carolina on June 26, 1833 to Thomas E. and Hannah Lide Hart. Both Thomas and Hannah were born in the county. Thomas had purchased the plantation more than a decade earlier. The plantation was located along the bluffs of Black Creek between the towns of Society Hill and Camden, where the modern city of Hartsville (named for the family) lies.
 |
| A view of Black Creek from Kalmia Plantation |
 |
| The Hart family home |
The plantation was more modest than the palatial mansions often depicted in popular culture. Thomas's family lived in a two-story farmhouse built using local timber. However, the planation was a large operation. Thomas owned almost 8,000 acres of land of which approximately 1,000 acres had been cleared for farming. He cultivated the land with the help of an enslaved workforce that, over time, grew from thirty people to one hundred. In addition to the family home, located on the plantation were more modest dwellings for the enslaved workforce as well as a gin house and screw, a blacksmith shop, and a shoe shop. Farming on the plantation focused on food provisions and cotton (the main cash crop in the area).
The area around the plantation went through major changes from the time Thomas first settled there to the time that T. E. was born. When Thomas first arrived, the area around the plantation was largely unsettled, but it developed into a growing farm community. Thomas stood at the center of this growth. He served as postmaster, justice of the peace, and local militia captain, and he ran a store.
Despite the growth, the area remained largely rural. Thomas's store was the only business of note, and there was no manufacturing. Life was largely organized on large farms or plantations. Except for its size, the Hart family plantation was typical. Most residents lived along Black Creek on farms ranging in size from a few hundred to a few thousand acres. Farmers made their living by raising their own food and growing cotton. Living on the average farm were a white family that owned the land and some number of enslaved workers, usually one or two families. Slaves made up a solid majority of the population: sixty percent of the county in 1840. Most worked and lived in close proximity to their enslavers. The wealthiest families like the Harts could employ overseers to supervise much of the day-to-day work of farming, but most had to run their farm by themselves.
While T. E. was born into one of the most prominent families in the area, the family was in decline when he was growing up. In 1840, when he was only six years old, the family suffered major financial losses in the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1837. Finances became so bad that Thomas was forced to put the plantation up for sale. Hardship struck a second time two years later when Thomas died at the age of forty-six.
After the father's death, life for T. E. and his siblings largely continued as before albeit under diminished circumstances. The plantation was held in trust by T. E.'s maternal uncle (Thomas C. Law and John W. Lide), and the family continued to farm.
 |
| 1820 map of Darlington County with the Hart family plantation indicated in red |
The educational opportunities in the area were modest, especially in light of T. E.'s later accomplishment. The only school in the area was a humble one-room log schoolhouse built near T. E.'s home. No records of school activities have been found, but it likely was run by a single teacher and poorly funded. (County-wide, educational funding amounted to only $7,000, $600 of which was provided by the state government.)
T. E. left the family plantation at age eighteen (in 1851) to enroll as a cadet at The Citadel, then known as the Citadel Academy, in Charleston. The decision was a reflection of family's decline. Fourteen years earlier, when the family's fortunes were better, his eldest brother Robert L. had graduated from South Carolina College. Located next door to the statehouse in the capital of Columbia (then one of the few cities in the state), the college was the training grounds of the state's planter elite. College coursework focused on the study of Greek and Latin, but students also occupied themselves by carousing in off-campus bars and horse racetracks. For most students, the education they received was impractical (knowledge of classical languages hardly helped one run the family plantation), but it served the important purpose of creating a shared culture among the planter elites who were expected to govern the state. Many would later be reunited with their former classmates at the statehouse while serving as legislators.
Attending the Citadel Academy was certainly a respectable activity for a planter's son, but it was very different experience. Simply stated, the Academy was established to provide the core of a military force that could defend the state if tensions over slavery and sectionalism escalated to political violence.
The Academy offered an academic education, but one that, in the words of Governor James Hopkins Adams, sought to impart "scientific and practical knowledge" rather than develop "scholarship and intellect" (as was done at South Carolina College). The institute offered no instruction in classical culture. Instead of ancient languages, students learned modern French as well as military tactics.
In general, the institute was run as a tightly regulated military environment. Students not only lived on campus, but they were forbidden from leaving except with written permission and in the company of a parent. Written regulations dictated a student's day down to details like when they woke up, where they ate, and how they dressed. On top of their academic duties, students spent at least forty-five minutes each weekday conducting military drills. Sundays included mandatory chapel religious service, and students had to pass an inspection under arms each Saturday.
The Citadel Academy was relatively small. Student enrollment stood at approximately one hundred. Classes were taught by five professors, each one responsible for all coursework in a given subject.
One of the most attractive features of the Citadel Academy was financial. About half of the cadets, including T. E. Hart, were fully funded by the state government. Funded students not only had their tuition paid for, but they also received fully subsided room and board as well as uniforms, freeing their parents from a major financial burden. The Academy was an elite institution (only wealthy South Carolinians could provide their children with the education needed to attend the school), but it was more accessible than South Carolina College which offered only limited financial support to students.
During his first year, T. E. was taught mathematics by John Adams Leland, a graduate of South Carolina College. The next year he left for Furman University and was replaced by Peter F. Stevens who was responsible for mathematics instruction for T.E.'s three remaining years at the Academy. Stevens was only three years older than T. E. and had himself graduated from the Academy only a few years earlier (in 1849).
Like many college graduates, T. E. worked as a teacher after graduation. It was a fortuitous time to be looking for employment as the state's wealth (slave-based agriculture was making South Carolina one of the richest states in the Union) supported a growing educational sector. Much of the growth came from the creation of church-affiliated colleges.
T. E.'s first job was at one of the newly created church-affiliated college: Furman University in Greenville. Located in the upstate, Greenville was a small resort town of about a thousand residents, half of which were enslaved. The town had grown in significance over the 1850s. It had been connected to a railroad, and the university had been established (in 1851). The university flourished. In 1855, enrollment stood at two hundred and twenty-eight students, a sizeable portion of the town.
Furman was associated with the Baptist church, and it offered three separate programs. Students could pursue a college preparatory program, a college program, or a program of religious studies. The college program offered coursework in Ancient Greek, Latin, and Hebrew as well as mathematics and the sciences. The program was progressive: students were allowed to select their classes rather than being required to take a fixed sequence of classes, as was traditional.
Furman University was about twice as large as the Citadel Academy. In 1855, enrollment stood at two hundred and twenty-eight students, most of whom were from the state. Only a handful were studying theology: the bulk of the students were split between the college preparatory program and the college program. They were taught by a faculty of ten. T. E. was hired as a math tutor. In that role, he was responsible for teaching college preparatory math classes.
Overall, the university had attracted an excellent faculty, many of whom had been educated at elite northern institutions. The mathematics professor was Charles Hallette Judson. Judson had been born in Connecticut and studied at Colgate University (then called the Hamilton Literary Institute) and the University of Virginia. His undergraduate degree was from the second school. He had moved to Furman as the founding mathematics professor after a few years of teaching elsewhere. Judson was an accomplished mathematician. He later published several articles in mathematical periodicals like The Analyst (a precursor to The Annals of Mathematics) However, Judson was teacher and an administrator, not a researcher. Consider his article "An Investigation of the Mathematical Relations of Zero and Infinity." The article focused on issues with treating infinity and zero, especially dividing by zero in the context of calculus. The article attracted significant attention and provoked debate between Judson and the periodical's editor. However, the discussion revolved around issuing stemming from the imprecise definition of limits in American textbooks rather than more significant theoretical issues.
After serving as tutor for two years, T. E. was promoted to adjunct professor chemistry and natural philosophy (as physics was then known). His tutorship was given to his former Citadel classmate John F. Lanneau. Like Professor Judson, the faculty member who T. E. replaced was highly accomplished. The position had been held by Charles Stockton Gaunett. Professor Gaunett had received an impressive education in the north and in Europe. He had graduated with an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1844 and then pursued additional studies in Great Britain, attending clinics at Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals in London and listened to chemistry lectures that Michael Faraday delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Prior to arriving at Furman, he had worked in the chemistry lab of James B. Rogers, taught at Burlington College in New Jersey for three years, and practiced medicine. It is unclear why he left Furman, but during the Civil War, he served as an Union army surgeon.
T. E. only served as an adjunct professor at Furman for a year. He then left to pursue more advanced studies in Europe. In October, he applied for passport to travel to German, and in April 1859 he enrolled as a student at Göttingen University.
T. E. appears to have intended to study chemistry. Advanced study would improve his professional prospects. Furman appears to have only appointed permanent professors with credentials comparable to those held by Professors Gaunett and Judson. Indeed, after T. E. left the university, he was again replaced by his former classmate John F. Lanneau, but like T. E., Lanneau was appointed to an adjunct professorship. Lanneau remained in that position until the university closed during the Civil War.
While not exactly common, it was not unheard of for South Carolinians, especially college professors, to study at German universities. At South Carolina College, math professor Charles S. Venable had studied at Berlin and Bonn. He had attended lectures by the astronomer Johann Franz Encke (a student of Gauss) as well as the mathematicians Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in Berlin. While in Bonn, he listened to astronomy lectures by Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander. James Woodrow, who would go on to serve as natural science professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, had spent two years studying at Heidelberg University.
The year after he enrolled at Göttingen was an eventful one for T. E. In September, he moved to Heidelberg to attend university there. He also married Susan Cameron Lanneau, the sister of his former classmate and colleague John F. Lanneau. The most impactful event happened in December. On the 24th, the state of South Carolina declared that its bond to the Union was "dissolved," and it was resuming its "separate and equal place among nations." The day that Citadel cadets had been anticipating had finally arrived. In the next month, cadets would first the first shots of the war, and virtually all alumni would become embroiled in the Civil War. In a later post, we will see what happened with T. E. Hart.
Papers by C. H. Judson
1. “Note on the Significance of the Signs + and - before the Radical √.” The Analyst 2, no. 3 (1875): 70–71.
2. “An Investigation of the Mathematical Relations of Zero and Infinity.” The Analyst 8, no. 4 (1881): 105–13.
3. Judson, C. H. “Correspondence.” The Analyst 10, no. 3 (1883): 74–75.
4. “Remark on Division of Concrete Number.” The American Mathematical Monthly 1, no. 3 (1894): 68–69.
5. Algebra Problem 99. The American Mathematical Monthly 6, no. 3 (1899): 92.
6. Problem 114. The Mathematical Magazine I, no. 12 (October 1884): 221.
Sources
1. "Valuable land for sale." Farmers' gazette, and Cheraw advertiser. [volume], April 28, 1841, Page 96, Image 4.
2. "The Furman University." Edgefield advertiser. [volume], December 19, 1855, Image 3
No comments:
Post a Comment