Euphemia Lofton Haynes earned an important place in the history of mathematics by becoming the first African-American woman to be awarded a PhD in Mathematics. She also served her community, working to improve opportunities for people in Washington DC.

Learner

Martha Euphemia Lofton was born on 11 September, 1890 in Washington DC, USA, to William S Lofton and Lavinia Lofton, née Day. William was a dentist, and Lavinia had been a kindergarten teacher¹ before her marriage.

Euphemia attended the M Street High School until 1907, and the Miner Normal School between 1907 and 1909. They were segregated schools for African-American pupils only (desegregation did not take place until 1954). She became a teacher in 1909, but then enrolled in Smith College for women in 1910. She was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics with Psychology in 1914.

Euphemia became a teacher in various schools, including Miner Normal School, and became Head of the Mathematics Department at Dunbar High School. Euphemia married Harold Haynes on 17 May, 1917. Harold was a year older than her, and had been a pupil at M Street High School, too. Euphemia's mother disapproved of them being together in 1908, but by 1917 he had gained a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and was working as a teacher at Howard University². Miner Normal School became Miner Teachers College in 1929, and in 1930 Euphemia became Professor of Mathematics there, as well as being appointed Head of the Mathematics Department that she founded.

Also in 1930, Euphemia was awarded a Master's Degree in Education by the University of Chicago³, with her dissertation being titled: 'The Historical Development of Tests in Elementary and Secondary Mathematics'. She studied for her doctorate at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC. Her thesis was titled 'Determination of Sets of Independent Conditions Characterizing Certain Special Cases of Symmetric Correspondences'. She was awarded her PhD in 1943. She was not the first African-American woman to fulfil the requirements of a PhD (that honour went to Eva Beatrice Dykes, who was also an alumna of M Street High School and received her PhD in 1921) but she was the first to obtain a PhD in Mathematics.

Educator

In 1945 Euphemia gave a presentation to mathematics teachers and conveyed her sense of the richness of the subject:

Mathematics is no more the art of reckoning and computation than architecture is the art of making bricks, no more than painting is the art of mixing colors... What is the mathematician doing? He is building notions or ideas, he is constructing, inventing, adding to his body of science. With what is he working? Ideas, relationships, implications, etc.

Euphemia held the posts of Professor of Mathematics and Head of Department until her retirement in 1959 - during that time the Miner Teachers College (for black students) merged with the Wilson's Teachers College (for white students) and became the District of Columbia Teachers College in 1955.

Outside of work, Euphemia contributed to organisations devoted to social improvement, including the National Committee of the Girl Scouts, the National Committee on Service to Negroes, the National Committee on Service to Women and Girls and the United Service Organization. She also provided service to the Catholic Church. She helped to found the Catholic Interracial Council, and served on the committees of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Federated Colored Catholics of America organisation, and the Washington Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women. For her efforts, she was awarded the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal by the Pope in 1959.

After retiring, Euphemia was recruited to the District of Columbia Board of Education. In 1959, District of Columbia (DC) schools were desegregated, but the Tracking System was instituted, which separated students into different classes (preparation for further study or for practical employment) depending on their performance in an IQ test. Euphemia's Master's dissertation had provided her with the ability to cast doubt on the validity of IQ tests as a way to predict academic potential, and she criticised the Tracking System as it generally had the effect of maintaining segregation (almost all students on the academic track were white, and almost all on the vocational track were black)⁴. She became president of the Board of Education in 1966 and supported the court case Hobson v Hansen that resulted in the DC Tracking System being abolished in 1967.

Harold died in 1978, and Euphemia died on 25 July, 1980. They had no children. $700,000 of their estate was gifted to the Catholic University of America (CUA) to establish a professorship named 'The Euphemia Haynes Chair' in the Department of Education. The Haynes-Lofton Family Papers are held in the archives of the CUA. When a new school was founded in Washington DC in 2004, it was named the E L Haynes Public Charter School in her honour.