Roxana Hayward Vivian (1871-1961) was born in Hyde Park. She graduated from Hyde Park High School and then went to Wellesley College. After getting a degree in Greek and Mathematics in 1894, she taught for one year in Stoughton and then for three years at Walnut Hill School in Natick. In 1898, she received an Alumnae Fellowship for Women at the University of Pennsylvania and began her graduate studies. She was the first woman to receive a doctorate in mathematics from the University.
Vivian returned to Wellesley College where she was the first woman in the Mathematics Department to hold a PhD. She stayed at Wellesley for twenty-six years. She served as the financial secretary for the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union of Boston. Vivian died at the Roxbury Home for Aged Women (now the Sophia Snow Place) in West Roxbury on May 31, 1961.
