Marjorie Lee Browne was born in Memphis, Tennessee on September 9, 1914.  Her father attended college (Memphis) in 1914, something which was quite rare in that day, and was apparently quite adept at 'mental mathematics.'  He imparted his enthusiasm for mathematics to his daughter Marjorie.  He had Marjorie enrolled in LeMoyne High School, a private Methodist school started after the Civil War to educate Negroes.  Marjorie's father earned enough working as a railway postal clerk to send her to the best school available at the time.  She eventually attended Howard University through a combination of scholarships, jobs and loans even though her college years ran concurrent with the Depression era.

Marjorie Browne received her B.S. in Mathematics from Howard University in 1935.  In 1939 she received an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan.  Thus, she was one of very few African-American women with advanced degrees in Mathematics.  Browne began to teach at Wiley College while pursuing her doctorate at the University in Michigan.  In 1949, she became one of the first African-American women to earn Ph.D.'s in Matheatics. (Evelyn Boyd Granville received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale University that same year).  After receiving her doctorate, Browne finished off her career at North Carolina Central University until her death in 1979.

Throughout her career, Browne maintained a deep interest in developing and continuing the education of secondary school teachers.  She conducted numerous seminars and summer institutes to that end and, in particular, authored several works explicitly for this purpose:

'Sets, Logic and Mathematical Thought' (1957), 'Introduction to Linear Algebra' (1959), 'Elementary matrix Algebra' (1969), 'Algebraic Structures' (1974), and 'A Note on Classical Groups' which was featured in American Mathematical Monthly (62, pp. 424-27, 1955).

Evelyn Boyd Granville was born May 1, 1924 in Washington, D.C.  An alumnus of Dunbar High School, Boyd was inspired by her African-American math teachers to pursue her studies in mathematics.  Evelyn Granville attended Smith College where she received her A.B. in Mathematics in 1945.  She later obtained her M.A. (1946) and Ph.D. (1949) in Mathematics from Yale University under renowned functional analyst Einar Hille.

After receiving her Ph.D., Granville spent a year at NYU's Institute of Mathematics as a research assistant.  In 1950 she became an associate professor of mathematics at Fisk University in Tennessee.  (Two of her students went on to become the 6th and 10th African-American women to earn Ph.D.'s in Mathematics.)  Evelyn Granville eventually moved on to enjoy careers with the government and industry, in particular with IBM and the space program.  She moved to Califoria State University at Los Angeles in 1967 as a full professor of mathematics.

Evelyn Boyd Granville still lives today.  She has authored several books on mathematics education for teachers including 'Theory and Application of Mathematics for Teachers.'

Author: Clarence L. Terry

References:
<http://newton.math.buffalo.edu/mad/MAD.html>

<http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/browne_marjorie_lee.html>

<http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/granville_evelynb.html>

<http://www.lib.lsu.edu/lib/chem/display/first_phds.html>