Luciano, Erika

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20 November 2023AperTO - Archivio Istituzionale Open Access dell'Università di TorinoOriginal Citation:“The patriarch of the Judeo-Italian intellectuals longing for the embrace with Uncle Sam”: Veblenand the Italian refugeesTerms of use:Open Access(Article begins on next page)Anyone can freely access the full text of works made available as "Open Access". Works made availableunder a Creative Commons license can be used according to the terms and conditions of said license. Useof all other works requires consent of the right holder (author or publisher) if not exempted from copyrightprotection by the applicable law.Availability:This is a pre print version of the following article:This version is available http://hdl.handle.net/2318/1887752 since 2023-01-27T09:46:27ZMathematisches Forschungsinstitut OberwolfachReport No. 56/2022DOI: 10.4171/OWR/2022/56History of mathematics through collaboration: Toward acomposite portrait of Oswald VeblenOrganized bySloan Despeaux, CullowheeDella Dumbaugh, RichmondJemma Lorenat, Claremont4 December – 10 December 2022Abstract. Oswald Veblen played a pivotal role in the history of Ameri-can mathematics in the twentieth century. His life, however, remains largelyunstudied. This conference was designed to redress this issue by exploringOswald Veblen and his contributions to the history of American and inter-national mathematics in an interactive workshop that used the Veblen Pa-pers from the US Library of Congress as a foundational and shared resource.With this frame, the conference raised queries and discussed issues related toVeblen, his mathematical contributions, and his collaborative initiatives, in-cluding his critical work aiding refugee mathematicians in WWII that helpedestablish long standing programs at American institutions that continue toadvance mathematics at the highest level. The workshop echoed Veblen’s col-laborative focus and brought together historians of mathematics and mathe-maticians to work alongside one another during the conference. This contentand collaborative approach combined to advance our understanding of Ve-blen’s collaborations and the history of twentieth-century mathematics morebroadly.Mathematics Subject Classification (2020): 01A60; 01A70; 51-03.Introduction by the OrganizersOswald Veblen earned his PhD in mathematics in 1903 from the University ofChicago under the direction of E. H. Moore. He was, then, among the firstinternationally-recognized American mathematicians educated in his home coun-try. Woodrow Wilson invited Veblen to Princeton as a Preceptor in 1905 andVeblen remained at the institution and advanced through the ranks, ultimatelybecoming the first H. B. Fine Professor. While at Princeton, he served the broader2 Oberwolfach Report 56/2022American mathematical community in his role as AMS President (1923-1924) andin his work to secure funds for mathematics (most notably in the form of NationalResearch Council Fellowships). In 1932, he left Princeton University, but not thetown, to join the newly formed Institute for Advanced Study as its first facultymember. Saunders Mac Lane has described Veblen’s contributions to the Insti-tute as “legendary.”1 Veblen helped hire the first faculty members at the Institute,including Albert Einstein, Hermann Weyl, and James Alexander. He served as afierce advocate for immigrant scholars. He recognized the value of young scholarsand helped establish structures at the IAS that allowed these mathematicians aregular and ongoing place there. He remained on the IAS faculty until 1950 whenhe segued to Professor Emeritus. As with many mathematicians, this title wasa shift in name only, as he continued to pursue his interest in the developmentof mathematics. He died in 1960, having lived a life fully devoted to mathemat-ics, advancing colleagues through various initiatives and mathematical ideas ingeometry and topology.In terms of style, this workshop followed the successful conference strategyemployed by “Women in Numbers” to create project-based interactive workshopswith measurable outcomes. Drawing on the archives from the Veblen papers atthe US Library of Congress, this workshop began with six talks on topics relatedto Veblen and his contributions to American and international mathematics inthe early- to mid-twentieth century. These talks comprise the first six abstractsbelow. For the remainder of the time participants worked in small groups onthemes in the life and professional contributions of Veblen using his papers fromthe Library of Congress as a shared resource. The five groups were initially focusedon Veblen’s foundations of geometry, Veblen and Princeton University, Veblen andthe American Mathematical Society, Veblen and World War II, and Veblen andthe Institute for Advanced Study. As the workshop continued these topics wererefined and revised, as can be seen in the abstracts that follow. At the end of eachworking day, groups reported on their progress, stumbling blocks, and unexpecteddiscoveries. The abstracts from each group point to research conducted duringthe workshop, as well as how the collaborative projects will continue and whatadditional archival resources will be incorporated. This large-scale collaborationon the same corpus served as a novel approach to historical scholarship. The finaltalk reflected on the process of the workshop, notable achievements, and possiblenext steps.The amenities and resources of MFO were particularly conducive for this col-laborative conference strategy. In particular, conference participants appreciatedthe ability to access the MFO library’s physical and online resources, the spaceto meet as a whole as well as in subgroups at any time, beautiful blackboardsand chalk, and, of course, bountiful coffee. The organizers would like to extenda generous thank you to Petra Lein for her helpful ideas and assistance in mak-ing arrangements for excursions for the group to enjoy Black Forest torte in the1Saunders Mac Lane, “Oswald Veblen: 1880-1960,” Biographical Memoirs, National Academyof Science, 1964, pp. 323-341, on p. 333.Toward a composite portrait of Oswald Veblen 3town of Oberwolfach and the Christmas Market and Living Advent Calendar inGengenbach.Toward a composite portrait of Oswald Veblen 5Workshop: History of mathematics through collaboration: To-ward a composite portrait of Oswald VeblenTable of ContentsDella Dumbaugh, Stephen KennedyA brief introduction to Oswald Veblen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Emmylou HaffnerWorking with manuscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Erika Luciano“The patriarch of the Judeo-Italian intellectuals longing for the embracewith Uncle Sam”: Veblen and the Italian refugees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Christopher HollingsThe Oslo International Congress of Mathematicians 1936 . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Deborah KentMathematics in the United States before Oswald Veblen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Laura E. TurnerOn the value of mathematics in society: Observations via education inAmerica during the 1920s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Benjamin Braun, Christopher HollingsReport of workshop summary talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Caroline Erhard, Laura Turner, Helena DurnováOswald Veblen’s years at Princeton and his role in making Princeton themathematical centre of the world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Benjamin Braun, Samson Duran, Sloan DespeauxReport of working group on Veblen and the American MathematicalSociety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26David Aubin, Christopher Hollings, Stephen Kennedy, Deborah Kent,Erika Luciano“An individualist of the old-fashioned American type”: The informalscientific diplomacy of Oswald Veblen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Emmylou Haffner, Jemma Lorenat, Nicolas Michel, Deniz SarikayaVeblen’s lecture notebooks on foundations of geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Juan Carvajalino, Della DumbaughVeblen at the Institute for Advanced Study: Building for excellence . . . . . 3712 Oberwolfach Report 56/2022“The patriarch of the Judeo-Italian intellectuals longing for theembrace with Uncle Sam”: Veblen and the Italian refugeesErika LucianoThe so-called Measures for the defense of the race (5 September-17 November1938) in Italy led to mass migrations, not only of scholars and intellectuals, butof some 6,000 individuals of Jewish descent from all walks of life, forced to leavebecause of the impossibility of providing for one’s self and family and of toleratingthe loss of civil and political rights, along with the reduction to a caste of pariahs(social and professional downgrading, marginalization, the injury to their owndignity as men and citizens, etc.). The exodus involved the academy particularly,which in 1938 counted almost 200 university professors and lecturers of Jewishorigin out of 1250. The loss of their human capital in some sectors slowed down,and even halted, Italy’s cultural, technological and economic progress, with seriousshort- and long-term implications.Jewish academic emigration from racist Italy quite largely differed from theflight of scholars from Central and Eastern Europe. Facilitated by networks ofsolidarity which were grounded on the web of international relations interwovenin the years of the Belle Époque of scientific internationalism, this exodus had toface various specific obstacles.• Linguistic difficulties, all the more important for people who worked withknowledge and words, and who wanted to express their thoughts with acertain precision and lexical finesse. In a country like Italy where thelearning of English had not been promoted at all by the fascist regime, thelanguage handicap was painfully felt.• Competition with refugees from other totalitarian regimes, and in particu-lar with those fleeing the Third Reich, who in the five years preceding theracial laws had occupied many positions in English-speaking academia.• The (understandable) perplexities of foreign institutions in welcoming intotheir staff men who had been notoriously fascist until 1938 and sometimesremained so.• The embarrassment of the newcomers in interacting with Italians who hadleft the country before 1938 for political reasons (the so-called fuoriusciti).• The difficulty in entering scientific and institutional contexts characterizedby forms, methods and dynamics of organization of research and teachingsignificantly different from the Italian ones. (Segré called it “the universityminuet that one danced at Berkeley, as one did in all universities.”)Globally, it must be frankly said, Italians struggled to adopt new ways of thinkingand making culture. They were very able to export their know-how, but rarelyre-targeted their profiles to detach from the traditions of study in which they hadbeen trained and in which they had worked until expatriation.The choice between leaving or staying, and the success or failure of the migrationproject, were conditioned by many factors: individual financial possibilities, ageof the potential exile, gender, breadth and effectiveness of the social and relationalToward a composite portrait of Oswald Veblen 13capital which he or she could raise. Adaptability and flexibility of the migrationproject were central, as were prestige, skills and competencies. In particular, thosewho had scant or distant connections with the English-speaking intellectual world,saw their opportunities reduced to a minimum.Veblen is a main actor in the story. For Italian mathematicians who wanted toleave, Veblen was a reference figure, both as a member of the Emergency Commit-tee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars (later renamed Emergency Committeein Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars) since its foundation in 1933, and as an indi-vidual colleague sensitive to their plight. Veblen had been to Italy several times;he had corresponded with Vito Volterra and Tullio Levi-Civita since the late nine-teenth century and had consulted them about the organization of mathematicallife in Rome before shaping the Institute for Advanced Study. Almost all Italianwould-be refugees turned to him: six mathematicians, two astronomers, two engi-neers, a full professor in Roman Law, a lecturer in embryology, many physicists,sometimes directly, sometimes through Levi-Civita.Veblen always responded to their appeals, without giving illusions but alsowithout cutting off hope. He collected information on openings all over the world,circulated the requests for help, carefully examined and ranked the applications,before submitting them to universities, research institutions, laboratories, archives,libraries or schools all over the world. Not infrequently, he also acted in mundaneand precise matters, typing curricula written with illegible graphs, correcting Eng-lish, and reviewing the files before proposing a candidate for a position. Often,he and his wife Elizabeth Mary Dixon Richardson hosted the Italian emigrantsand helped them to fit into a country like America with a lifestyle and issues verydifferent from Italy. The sons of Volterra, Castelnuovo, Fano and Fubini, who hadknown Veblen as children, ended up viewing him ‘as a sort of father’ (quotationfrom a letter of Gina Castelnuovo to Ugo Fano).Thanks to Veblen, many persons mobilized in favour of Italians and teamedup with rescue agencies to resettle them in North and South America, Australia,etc. The engagement of these men represents a fundamental lesson in academicrescue and highlights the political role mathematicians can play through scientificdiplomacy, even if their action did not always suffice. And even if, as happenedon various occasions, Veblen’s efforts provoked opposition within the Americanmathematical community.Veblen also intervened publicly on at least two occasions: when he resignedfrom the Zentralblatt editorial board, in protest against Levi-Civita’s dismissaland when he refused to participate in the Volta Conference of 1939, in publicprotest against the Royal Academy of Italy and the Italian Mathematical Union.For these gestures, as well as for his scientific contributions, Veblen would beappointed foreign member of the Lincei academy in 1947, nominated by GuidoCastelnuovo.Based on new archival materials, this paper presents an overview of the phe-nomenon of Italian mathematical emigration, placing an especial emphasis onVeblen’s individual efforts. His correspondence with Italian refugees has offered14 Oberwolfach Report 56/2022constructive suggestions for identifying at least three open questions which deserveattention.• Did Veblen work merely on account of simple scientific realizations or didemotional involvement and humanitarian feeling play a role?• How did Veblen’s rescue action depend on his previous experiences ofmentoring and fundraising?• In aiding the refugees, did Veblen act as a stateman, as a diplomat, as agood person, or as a grand man?Veblen’s correspondence with Italian aspiring refugees and displaced scholarsconstitutes an intensely human iconography of personal and professional lives, ofindividual and institutional choices, of presences and absences (who succeeded infleeing, who failed, who did not have the chance to leave), of scientific and ethicalresponsibilities in evaluating and recruiting colleagues. A portrait of a gentlemanand of a gentle man emerges, of a man of science who combined a concern for thewelfare of mathematics itself with a sympathetic concern for individuals.References[1] Luciano, Erika, Looking for a space of intellectual survival. The Jewish mathematical dias-pora from fascist Italy. 1938-1948, Basel: Springer (2023 f.c.).[2] Reingold, Nathan, Refugee Mathematicians in the United States of America, 1933-1941:Reception and Reaction, Annals of Science 38 (1981), 313–338.[3] Siegmund-Schultze, Reinhard, Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany. IndividualFates and Global Impact, Princeton: University Press (2009).The Oslo International Congress of Mathematicians 1936Christopher HollingsThe International Congresses of Mathematicians (ICMs) have been held at (rea-sonably) regular intervals since 1897, and — despite what many mathematicianshave chosen to believe — have certainly not been isolated from the wider politicalcircumstances within which they have taken place. This is particularly true of the1936 ICM, held in Oslo against the backdrop of German rearmament, forced emi-grations from Germany, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, and the strengthening ofideological control in the USSR, to mention just a few points from the Europeanpolitics of the mid-1930s. In this talk, I give a brief account of the congress, in bothits mathematical and political aspects, as described in the book [2]. In line withthe aims of the wider workshop, I try to bring out Veblen’s contributions bothto the ICMs (he was a plenary speaker in Oslo) and to the wider internationalmathematical community.A study of the Oslo ICM reveals that there were five national groups in par-ticular (though not all of them were present in Oslo) whose actions shaped themeeting:• the Norwegian organisers;• the politically selected German delegation;Toward a composite portrait of Oswald Veblen 43ParticipantsProf. Dr. David AubinInstitut de Mathématiques de JussieuHistoire des Sciences MathématiquesCase Postale 2474, place Jussieu75252 Paris Cedex 05FRANCEProf. Dr. Benjamin BraunDepartment of MathematicsUniversity of Kentucky715 Patterson Office TowerLexington, KY 40506-0027UNITED STATESDr. Juan CarvajalinoUniversité Paris 8Laboratoire d’Economie Dionysien2 rue de la Liberté93200 Saint-DenisFRANCEProf. Dr. Sloan DespeauxWestern Carolina UniversityDepartment of Mathematics andComputer Science426 Stillwell BuildingCullowhee NC 28723UNITED STATESProf. Dr. Della Dumbaugh221 Richmond WayDept. of MathematicsUniversity of Richmond212 Jepson HallRichmond VA 23173UNITED STATESDr. Samson DuranEST-GHDSO,UNIVERSITÉ PARIS SACLAY,Bâtiment 407,Rue du Doyen Georges Poitou,91405 Orsay CedexFRANCEDr. Helena DurnovaDepartment of MathematicsFaculty of EducationMasaryk UniversityPorici 31603 00 BrnoCZECH REPUBLICProf. Dr. Caroline EhrhardtDépartement de Mathématiques etHistoire de SciencesUniversité de Paris 82 rue de la liberté93526 Saint-Denis CedexFRANCEDr. Emmylou HaffnerITEM (CNRS/ENS)45, rue d’Ulm75005 ParisFRANCEDr. Christopher HollingsMathematical InstituteUniversity of OxfordAndrew Wiles BuildingWoodstock RoadOxford OX2 6GGUNITED KINGDOMProf. Dr. Stephen KennedyMAA/AMS Publications1000 Greenleaf CtNorthfield MN 55057UNITED STATES44 Oberwolfach Report 56/2022Dr. Deborah A. KentThe Mathematical InstituteUniversity of St AndrewsNorth HaughSt. Andrews Fife KY16 9SSUNITED KINGDOMProf. Dr. Jemma LorenatPitzer College1050 North Mills AvenueClaremont, CA 91711UNITED STATESProf. Dr. Erika LucianoDipartimento di MatematicaUniversita degli Studi di TorinoVia Carlo Alberto, 1010123 TorinoITALYDr. Nicolas MichelBergische Universität WuppertalFakultät 04 Mathematik undNaturwissenschaftenRaum F.12.02Gaußstr. 2042119 WuppertalGERMANYDr. Deniz SarikayaVrije Universiteit BrusselCentre for Logic and Philosophy ofSciencePleinlaan 21050 BrusselsBELGIUMDr. Laura TurnerDepartment of MathematicsMonmouth University400 Cedar AvenueWest Long Branch 07764UNITED STATES

“The patriarch of the Judeo-Italian intellectuals longing for the embrace with Uncle Sam”: Veblen and the Italian refugees

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“The patriarch of the Judeo-Italian intellectuals longing for the embrace with Uncle Sam”: Veblen and the Italian refugees

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