Constance Reid

Constance Bowman Reid (January 3, 1918 – October 14, 2010) was the author of several biographies of mathematicians and popular books about mathematics. She received several awards for mathematical exposition. She was not a mathematician but came from a mathematical family—one of her sisters was Julia Robinson, and her brother-in-law was Raphael M. Robinson. Background and education Reid was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Ralph Bowers Bowman and Helen (Hall) Bowman. One of her younger sisters was the mathematician Julia Robinson. The family moved to Arizona and then to San Diego when the girls were a few years old. In 1950 she married a law student, Neil D. Reid, with whom she had two children, Julia and Stewart. Reid received a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Diego State University in 1938 and a Master of Education degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1949. She worked as a teacher of English and journalism at San Diego High School from 1939 to 1950, and as a free-lance writer since then. She has said, "I always wanted to be a writer, but it took me a while to find my subject."