Mary Frances Winston was born in Forreston, IL, in 1869. She entered the University of Wisconsin in 1884, graduating with special honors in mathematics in 1889. She worked as an instructor of Mathematics at Downer College, Wisconsin, 1889-1891, before being appointed Fellow in Mathematics at Bryn Mawr College in 1891. She also held an honorary Fellowship in Mathematics at University of Chicago in 1892. Winston was one of the first women to attend the University of Goettingen, Germany, studying pure mathematics, physics and astronomy, 1893-1896. She was the first American woman to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Goettingen, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 1896. Her dissertation was published in Mathematische Analen, a European mathematical journal. Winston was elected chair of Mathematics at Kansas State Agricultural College, 1897. She married Prof. H.B. Newson, a professor of Mathematics at the University of Kansas, in 1900, and resigned her position, expressing regret that a woman of her scientific attainments could not fill two positions at once: college professor and homemaker. Professor H.B. Newson died in 1910. Mary Winston Newson died in 1959.

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Vertical File. Newson, Mary Winston.