The GAIM 2025 Women
Every year, Girls’ Adventures in Math aims to spotlight four brilliant women pioneers. For GAIM 2025, meet Anne Carroll Moore, Florence Price, Flossie Wong-Staal, and Mary Somerville! Our competition problems will be based on the lives of these women.
Anne Carroll Moore, Librarian
Born: 1871
Died: 1961
Birthplace: Limerick, Maine, United States
Once upon a time children were not welcome in public libraries, and only grownup books were available to borrow. But I envisioned a space where kids could pick up a great book and groups could gather to share music, laughter, and cozy reading nooks. So I set to work making my dream a reality!
I had planned to become a lawyer like my father, but hardships in life redirected me. Both of my parents died as I was graduating college. I turned instead to a program at the Pratt Institute Library. Here as I prepared to become a librarian, I thought about the way that children under 14 were barred from libraries, due to the idea of the library as a quiet reading space. But kids liked to read too! The Pratt Institute Library let me experiment by creating a separate children’s room. To gather ideas on what would serve their needs, I visited schools and talked to children on the streets. I loved seeing the long line of children circling the block when the room finally opened!
From this success I spearheaded children’s spaces at the branches of the New York Public Library, including story times, book lists, and the loaning of books to children. I celebrated the ethnic diversity of the children who patronized these spaces. By 1913 one-third of the books checked out from the NYPL were by children!
Eventually I became a leading reviewer of children’s books in newspapers such as the NY Herald Tribune. I also founded Children’s Book Week. Reading is so important to the formation of children AND adults - I hope you’ll visit your local library and pick up a book today!
Florence Price, Composer
Born: 1887
Died: 1953
Birthplace: Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
Have you heard my distinctly American music? I am a composer of mixed-race African, European, and Native American descent, but for some years I had to pass as Mexican to shield myself from the anti-black prejudice of the Jim Crow South. It was not until moving north that I could embrace my identity and showcase it in my compositions.
I started playing piano and composing at 4 years old and people immediately noticed my talent. My first composition was published when I was 11. Just like Mozart, right? At age 14 I graduated as valedictorian of my high school and went to the New England Conservatory to major in piano and organ. I then returned to the South and got married, but a series of violent racial incidents forced my family to move north to Chicago. Here I found a flourishing community of black musicians who were happy to champion my composition career.
In 1932 I got my big breakthrough! My Symphony in E Minor won a national award, which led to its premier by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This was the first piece by an African-American woman to be played by a major orchestra. By this time it was the Great Depression and I had gotten divorced and was a single mother to 2 children. It was a relief to have orchestras playing my pieces and music publishers accepting my work. I felt the freedom to infuse my music with my cultural heritage and make the classical/spiritual style my own. I said, “It is simple heart music and therefore powerful.”, and if you hear it you will understand.
Unlike Mozart, my huge creative output never got the wide audience it deserved, but today musicians are starting to revive my work and recognize my place in American classical music!
Flossie Wong-staal, Molecular biologist
Born: 1947
Died: 2020
Birthplace: Guangzhou, China
Do you know what a retrovirus is? Maybe not, but you probably know what HIV is, and what a dangerous disease it was in the 1980’s. I led a team which was the first to clone HIV. We not only proved that HIV is the cause of AIDS, but also came up with the Antiretroviral Therapy needed to manage the disease in infected individuals to let them live long and healthy lives.
I was born Yee Ching Wong in Guangzhou, China, but my family moved to Hong Kong in 1952 to escape the Communists who had come to power in the late 1940s. I discovered my passion for science while at an American-run Catholic school in Hong Kong, where I chose my English name “Flossie” after a typhoon. The nuns encouraged me to study in the US so I went to UCLA for college and earned my PhD in molecular biology in 1972.
I joined a team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and quickly produced volumes of research on HIV and other human retroviruses. Not only did I clone HIV, but I also completed its genetic mapping, enabling the development of HIV tests. Shortly on the heels of my success at understanding HIV, I became the most cited female scientist of the 1980s. I founded the Center for AIDS research at the University of California San Diego as well as a biopharmaceutical company, Immusol.
My research earned me many honors, but to me the most important thing is that I used my gifts to make a contribution to quality-of-life and longevity for humans!
Mary somerville, mathematician, Astronomer and geographer
Born: 1780
Died: 1872
Birthplace: Jedburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Hello! It’s my privilege to be the first person ever called a scientist! I’m a mathematician, astronomer, and geographer, but before me those who did scientific research were called “men of science”. The philosopher William Whewell coined the term “scientist” to include me!
From childhood I relished learning all kinds of things on my own - Latin, Greek, Shakespeare, algebra, and geometry. I also danced, painted, and played the piano. I was fortunate that my family cared about my education, as not many women had the opportunities that I had. After the death of my first husband in 1804, I had the means to dive deeply into the studies of calculus, physics, and astronomy. My second husband supported me in my academic pursuits, and when he became a physician in London, I became the tutor to Ada Lovelace, future computer programmer! When brilliant Ada got stuck on math problems she’d come over and we’d put our brains together over a cup of tea.
I published my first book of scientific research at age 51 and followed with four more books. I also predicted that there was a planet in our solar system beyond Uranus based on calculations of gravity, and this led to the discovery of Neptune in 1846. Despite these accomplishments I was frustrated at the restrictions British laws placed on women, and I was the first person to sign John Stuart Mills’ unsuccessful petition for women’s suffrage in 1868.
The University of Oxford named its Somerville College after me, and you can see my face on the £10 note in Scotland!