James Edward Oliver (1829-1895) was an American mathematician known for his role in establishing the
mathematics department at Cornell University.
Oliver graduated from Harvard College in 1849 and was immediately appointed assistant in the office of the American Nautical Almanac in Cambridge. Two decades would elapse before, in 1871, he became assistant professor of mathematics at Cornell, and two years later was appointed as full professor.[1]
Oliver chaired the Department of Mathematics at Cornell from 1871 until his death. He founded the Social Science Club and was a member of the University Ethical Association. He was known to play an important role in local politics and society, for example, introducing Susan B. Anthony at the Tompkins County Political Equality Convention in 1894. In a similar vein, he taught a popular class in ethics at the Unitarian Church in Ithaca.[2]
Oliver was fond of applying mathematics to then-unusual subjects. He attempted the formulation of
economic laws as algebraic formulas and, at Cornell, founded a seminar in economics. Although he was not the first
to make such attempts, his particular goal was to define the relation between economics and probability theory.[3]
He died in 1895 after a ten-week battle with serious illness.[3]
^ abAppleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1887-1889
