Mathematical Treasure: Calculus for America

Differential and Integral Calculus (1902), by Virgil Snyder (1869-1950) and John Irwin Hutchinson (1867-1935), was a popular calculus text written for American undergraduate students. Many of the previous texts used in U.S. universities were French or German translations, but a specific series of mathematics books for the American audience was compiled as the “Modern Mathematical Series” and published by the American Book Company. Both of the authors of Differential and Integral Calculus were American mathematicians: Snyder was a recognized algebraic geometer who earned his Ph.D. at Göttingen with Felix Klein, and Hutchinson was a number theorist and one of the first to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago.

The form and format of this calculus text helped establish the standards followed in the writing of modern calculus and other university texts. In the “Preface,” the authors explained their writing strategy:

Integration was introduced directly as the inverse operation of differentiation. After much practice in integration by recognizing antiderivatives, the following chapter discusses the “area under a curve” approach to understanding integration.

These images were obtained through the courtesy of the University of California’s Digital Library. The book may be viewed in its entirety in the Internet Archive.

Index to Mathematical Treasures