Anna Stafford

Albert Einstein also arrived in Princeton that same month and year to join the Faculty of the newly-formed Institute, which had been founded in 1930 and three years later opened its doors in borrowed quarters in Princeton University's Fine Hall. Stafford was one of two young women [Mabel Schmeiser was the other] in that first small group of mathematicians who came to the new Institute to work with its outstanding faculty: James Alexander, Albert Einstein, John von Neumann, Oswald Veblen, and Hermann Weyl. In 1934 this group was joined by visiting professor P.A.M. Dirac. Anna Stafford was born in Chicago on August 20, 1905. Anna shared her mother's love of mathematics, and knew by the time she was fourteen that her future would include a career either in the field itself or in something closely related to it. Perhaps, she thought then, she might become an astronomer. A turning point for Stafford while she was at Chicago came when she heard a lecture on topology given by University of Michigan mathematician Raymond Wilder (also a Member in the School of Mathematics in 1933-34). "I thought, aha – that's what I like," Stafford recalled. "But there was very little to find on the subject, and what little there was to find was done by a man named Oswald Veblen, who had written a book called Analysis Situs (1922), and by James Alexander. And that [Princeton] was the only place I knew that you could study topology. So I wrote to Princeton and said I wanted to study topology, and they sent me a postal card saying, "We don't take girls." "Then," Stafford continued, "I read about the Institute in The New York Times ("Einstein Institute Has 20 Students," January 20, 1933). The article said that Veblen and Alexander were there, at the Institute. And I said, 'that's where I'm going.'" On August 31, 1933, Stafford wrote to inform Veblen that "the University of Chicago conferred the degree of Doctor of Philosophy upon me last Friday, so I hasten to remind you that I am most eager to come to the Institute." "Out of scores of applicants," Institute Founding Director Abraham Flexner reported to his Board of Trustees on October 9, 1933, "seventeen were accepted by Professor Veblen, who passed on their qualifications ... The creative faculty, the possession of ideas, the ability to work more or less alone under the stimulus and guidance of real masters in a given field: these are the criteria which have been applied to those who have asked to be admitted to the Institute. Their success and influence will not depend upon numbers but upon quality, as has been emphasized from the outset ... They [the applicants] have all given evidence of ability to do original work. They need, however, at this moment in their respective careers contact with older and wiser persons, to whom they may bring their problems for informal discussion and whose lectures or seminars they may attend in order that they may broaden and deepen their knowledge of mathematics and kindred subjects." Anna Stafford enjoyed her years at the Institute – not only the mathematics, but also the social life. Abraham Flexner commented on this aspect of Institute life in his report to the Board on January 29, 1934. "Fine Hall has offered abundant opportunity to cultivate delightful social relations in this highly varied group," Flexner observed. "Every afternoon tea is served, and there is an attendance of 60 to 75 mathematicians, who discuss with one another the subjects upon which they are working and sometimes fortunately subjects which have no direct relation to their work." Anna Stafford remembers other social events at the Institute, and one dance in particular. "Every year Mrs. Alexander and Mrs. von Neumann threw a party," she recalled, "an absolutely fantastic party, at the Alexander's house, which had a ballroom. There were hardly any women guests, maybe six women to twenty men – you should go to a ball like that! A great big tall thin man asked me to dance, and we waltzed all