Haynes, Euphemia Lofton

Euphemia Lofton Haynes, née Martha Euphemia Lofton, (born Sept. 11, 1890, Washington, D.C., U.S.—died July 25, 1980, Washington, D.C.), American educator and mathematician who was the first African American woman to receive a doctoral degree in mathematics.

Lofton was born into a socially prominent African American family. Her father, William, was a dentist, and her mother, Lavinia, was a kindergarten teacher in the public schools of Washington, D.C., and an active member of the local African American Roman Catholic community. Lofton graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in 1914, and she married teacher Harold Appo Haynes in 1917. She received a master’s degree in education from the University of Chicago in 1930, and that same year she founded the mathematics department at Miner Teachers College (later the University of the District of Columbia), an institution in Washington dedicated to training African American teachers. During her career she also taught in elementary and high schools, including Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, which was the premier high school for African Americans and where she chaired the mathematics department. She was also chair of the division of mathematics and business education at the District of Columbia Teachers College.

In 1943 Haynes earned a doctorate in mathematics from The Catholic University of America. She retired from teaching in 1959. She was active in the Roman Catholic Church, especially after her retirement. She cofounded the Catholic Interracial Council of the District of Columbia and received the medal Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice from Pope John XXIII in 1959. The following year she was appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Education and was president of that body from 1966 to 1967. During her time on the Board of Education, she fought racial segregation within the school system and also supported a lawsuit to desegregate the school system. She stepped down from the board in 1968. After her death The Catholic University of America used a bequest of $700,000 from her estate to endow a chair and establish a student loan fund in the education department.