A little Black girl magic added to a passion for math equaled major success for Gloria Ford Gilmer, the first Black woman to have research in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
The Division displays around 12,000 total collections. Josh Levy, a historian at the Library of Congress, inquired about acquiring Gilmer’s research last year. The mathematician’s daughter, Jill Gilmer, didn’t hesitate.
She said to GMA3, “When the Library of Congress reached out to me, I was blown away…it was interesting to see that all the work that she had done was being recognized. It was really an honor.”
Gilmer made her mark in her hometown of Milwaukee, where she was the first Black math instructor for the Milwaukee Public Schools system and the first Black math instructor at Milwaukee Area Technical College, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She was also the first Black person to serve on the board of governors for the Mathematical Association of America.
Math and culture might not make sense to the average person, but Gilmer researched both with ethnomathematics, which she called “the math of the people.” From basketball to the geometry of hair braiding, she researched math in everyday culture.
“So, for instance, she said there’s math in basketball because the athletes estimate the angle that they’re shooting the ball at,” Jill Gilmer told GMA3.
“Gloria Gilmer’s work really intertwines mathematics and civil rights in a way that’s not entirely unique to her,” Levy added. “You really get a sense from her papers, this is someone who cares very deeply about mathematics and this is someone who cares very deeply about justice.…We don’t have any collections that reflect the history of this movement. So she really is the first collection that we have that documents the findings of the ethnomathematics movement.”
Gilmer was motivated to give back. Jill said her mother would say, “We must lift as we climb. Pave a path for the next generation coming up.”
The mathematician died in August 2021 at 93.
