James Mills Peirce
Peirce in 1899 publication
BornMay 1, 1834
Cambridge, Massachusetts
DiedMarch 21, 1906(1906-03-21) (aged 71)
Education
Parent
Relatives
2nd Perkins Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics
In office
1885–1906
Preceded byBenjamin Peirce
Succeeded byWilliam Elwood Byerly
Dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
In office
1895–1898

James Mills Peirce (May 1, 1834[1] – March 21, 1906[2]) was an American mathematician and educator.[1] He taught at Harvard University for almost 50 years.[3]

Early life and family

Peirce was born May 1, 1834, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[4] He was the eldest son of Sarah Hunt (Mills)[3] Peirce and Benjamin Peirce (1809–1880), a professor of astronomy and mathematics at Harvard University.[1] The family was considered part of the Boston Brahmin elite class. The surname is pronounced to rhyme with "purseⓘ".[5] Benjamin Peirce's father, also named Benjamin, was librarian at Harvard.[6] James had four younger siblings; one brother was philosopher, logician and professor Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914).[3] Another brother was Herbert Henry Davis Peirce (1849–1916) who was the First Secretary of the American Embassy in Saint Petersburg, Russia, at the end of the 19th century.[2]

J. M. Peirce graduated from Harvard College in 1853.[1] While an undergraduate at Harvard, he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club.[1] He attended Harvard's law school for one year.[3] In 1857, he enrolled at the university's Divinity School and graduated in 1859.[3]

Career

Like his father, James Mills Peirce became a professor of mathematics and astronomy at Harvard.[1][7] He was first a Tutor in Mathematics, then a proctor at Harvard.[3] He was a preacher in Boston and Charleston, South Carolina, but eventually returned to academia, first as Assistant Professor of Mathematics in 1861.[3] He was promoted to University Professor of Mathematics in 1869, then to Perkins Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics—the same position his father once held—in 1885. He was head of the Graduate Department at Harvard from 1872 to 1895 (becoming its dean when it was converted to the Graduate School). He was the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1895 to 1898.[3]

Among his publications are Mathematical Tables Chiefly to Four Figures (1896)[7] and A Text-Book of Analytic Geometry; On the Basis of Professor Peirce’s Treatise (1857).[1] He was considered a world authority on quaternions.

Personal life

Peirce was an early proponent of homosexuality, writing extensively about gay love. The book, Sexual Inversion, by influential British sexologist Havelock Ellis contains in-depth case histories. In 1897 it featured a letter by “Professor X.” Circumstantial but suggestive evidence has identified the letter writer as Harvard math professor, James Mills Peirce. He wrote, “[W]e ought to think and speak of homosexual love, not as 'inverted' or 'abnormal' . . . but as being in itself a natural, pure and sound passion.” [8]

Notes and references

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kennedy, Hubert (Winter 1978). "The Case for James Mills Peirce" (PDF). Journal of Homosexuality (Six Articles on James Mills Peirce (2003)). 4 (2): 179–184. doi:10.1300/j082v04n02_04. PMID 368227.
  2. 1 2 Kennedy, Hubert (1979). "James Mills Peirce and the Cult of Quaternions" (PDF). Historia Mathematica (Six Articles on James Mills Peirce (2003)). 6 (4): 423–429. doi:10.1016/0315-0860(79)90028-4.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kennedy, Hubert (1979). "Towards a Biography of James Mills Peirce" (PDF). Historia Mathematica (Six Articles on James Mills Peirce (2003)). 6: 195–201.
  4. ↑ Whittemore, J. K. (13 July 1906). "James Mills Peirce". Science. 24 (602): 40–48 – via JSTOR.
  5. ↑ "Note on the Pronunciation of 'Peirce'". iupui.edu. Peirce Project Newsletter. December 1994.
  6. ↑ Kennedy, Hubert (November–December 1982). "Reputations reconsidered" (PDF). Harvard Magazine (Six Articles on James Mills Peirce (2003)). Vol. 85, no. 2. pp. 62–64.
  7. 1 2 "James Mills Peirce: 'Professor X'". outhistory.org. Digital Humanities Initiative, The New School. Retrieved October 17, 2017.
  8. ↑ "James Mills Peirce: "Professor X" · Aspects of Queer Existence in 19th-Century America, by Rich Wilson · OutHistory". outhistory.org. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
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