Hunter College ... served women in the New York City area, was tuition-free, and by 1916 was the largest women's college in the country. Hunter's mathematics department was large, with seven regular faculty members in 1916; all were women and none had a doctorate.

FIRE CAPTAIN SHOT BY ONE OF HIS MEN. Captain Popular With Men.

Captain Rudolph Eisele, 50 years old, of Engine Company 41, a veteran of twenty-four years' service in the Fire Department, was shot and probably mortally wounded last night as he stood in the door of his firehouse at 330 East 150th Street, the Bronx, by Fireman William Devin, a member of his company. ... Fireman Devin, seized by comrades, says he could not control an insane impulse to kill ...

Fire Captain's Condition Grave.

Captain Rudolph Eisele of Engine Company 41, who was shot in the head Saturday night by one of his firemen, was reported in a critical condition late last night in Lincoln Hospital. William Devin, the fireman who shot his superior when "something snapped in his brain," is being held without bail for hearing today in Morrisania Court on a charge of felonious assault.

EX-FIRE CAPTAIN HERE ENDS LIFE UP-STATE; Rudolph Eisele Found Hanged in Poughkeepsie - Was Shot by Fireman in 1929.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., November 27. - Rudolph Eisele, formerly a captain in the New York City Fire Department, was found hanging from a beam in the garage of his home at 34 South Randolph Avenue this morning by his wife, Mrs Caroline Eisele. Dr Howard P Carpenter, medical examiner, pronounced him dead and gave a preliminary verdict of suicide.

Music was also a major part of her life, and at one point she seriously considered a career in opera. She spent the summer of 1931 studying voice with Madame Jeanne Fourestier in Paris. A few years later, in New York, the Polish- American Wagnerian soprano Elsa Alsen recommended her own voice coach in Los Angeles, Morris Halpern, with whom Eisele studied (as did Kitty Carlisle Hart). Eisele spent 1934 in Los Angeles, where she continued her studies with Halpern while taking courses in mathematics at the University of Southern California.

Morris Halpern (1878-1963) emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1891 at the age of 13. He supported himself through a variety of odd jobs including selling newspapers, polishing guitars and working in factories where he later became a labour organiser and social worker. Despite a lack of formal education Halpern's intellectual ability gained him admittance into Columbia University in 1906. He was awarded a MA in 1909 and a Ph.D. in 1911. In the 1920s Morris and Vera Halpern [Vera Gladstone, née Rocklin, (1868-1948), his common law wife] left New York and moved to Los Angeles where they opened a millinery shop named Madame Vera. Financial difficulties and Vera's sojourn in a sanatorium in 1927 forced the closure of the shop in 1928/29. Halpern then served as music director for KHJ, a Los Angeles radio station, where he selected the music and wrote the scripts for the weekly "To the Ladies" classical music program hosted by Globe Mills. After the loss of this position Halpern began teaching voice. Among his students were Elsa Alsen, Kitty Carlisle and Carolyn Eisele.

One reason this situation was possible was the inauguration in 1929 of an enlightened president. At that time few of the women on the Hunter faculty were married and ... it was not unusual to insist on the resignation of a woman upon marriage. The new president, James M Kieran, replied to the question "Should a woman member of the staff resign when she got married?" by saying that "the only thing such a person had to do was to file her married name for payroll purposes."

She was inspecting the Plimpton Collection at Columbia University and came across what was then a surprising letter from Peirce to Plimpton, the latter having hired the former as a consultant to his project of acquiring a magnificent collection of early mathematical publications. This letter, and others, clearly showed that Peirce was a master of the history of science as well as the history of mathematics. While she had known about Peirce, she had not realised the extent and depth of his activities as a mathematician or scientist. She showed copies of her discoveries to a close friend who remarked, "I think you have discovered gold."

The legal codes are crowded with definitions of many forms of crime, but one of the most deplorable crimes - the waste of human genius by social conventions - is never even mentioned. I am led to this reflection by an accidental discovery of two manuscript letters written by C S Peirce.

Although appreciation of the work of Charles S Peirce has been growing rapidly in the academic world during the last twenty-five years, some of the younger readers who are not working directly in the field of philosophy or logic may wonder who he was and why his name should be associated with genius. A short sketch of his attainments may assist them in the evaluation of the discovered manuscripts.

Carefully tucked away in the files of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress and in the archives of Widener Library and Houghton Library at Harvard University are the two ends of a correspondence that stirs the imagination and quickens the pulse of the scientist or historian interested in scientific Americana of the late nineteenth century. The correspondents are two of the greatest intellects ever produced in America and their exchange of opinion regarding matters scientific and personal serves as an interesting personalised documentation of the scientific thought of their period. The renowned astronomer, Simon Newcomb, considered the sheaf of letters from Charles S Peirce important enough to file away with those of other important men in science whom he knew. Peirce, America's belatedly recognised giant in logic and philosophy, preserved a number of Newcomb's letters as well as the drafts of some of his letters to Newcomb of which we have no other record. The correspondence is being published herein for the first time. The correspondence was discovered by the writer while doing research for a book on the activities of Charles S Peirce as a historian of science under a grant from the American Philosophical Society.

Within a year of its founding, the group had become what she fondly described as "a Pythagorean Brotherhood." Acknowledging the roster of eminent speakers at the meetings, she reminisced that "the big guns were coming to us to deliver lectures just as readily as going to the national meeting."

In 1980, she was awarded a Doctor of Humanities degree by Texas Tech University and two years later received an honorary Doctorate of Science from Lehigh University. In 1985, the New York Academy of Sciences recognised Eisele for her seminal contributions to the history and philosophy of science through her publication of Peirce's mathematical and philosophical works.

She spent the last eight years of her life in bed in her small apartment surrounded by her books and papers, almost entirely unable to communicate, and under the constant care of a professional nurse.

The stiff Manhattan rents forced a quick evacuation of the apartment. So, at the request of the executor of her estate, Arthur Kaufman, Nathan Houser and I left for New York City to collect her library and papers, which had been given to the Peirce Edition Project.

Carolyn Eisele lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the 27th floor of an apartment building in midtown Manhattan. What the apartment lacked in size was amply compensated for by its location and its most magnificent view of the Manhattan skyline, especially at night. The apartment was literally filled with books and papers. She must never have thrown anything away. Books and journals were found everywhere, as were the remnants of her extensive travels, and the hall closets were filled more than knee-high with shopping bags stuffed with correspondence. Her complete financial records, including all check stubs, tax returns, phone bills, etc. had also been preserved. Even the kitchen did not escape, as there was an old shopping cart filled with mathematics books blocking one of its two entryways. With the help of Ralph Müller from Fordham University and five of his students, we carried away well over a hundred boxes, quite a few of which had already been packed eight years earlier to make room for a hospital bed.