Drawing the boundaries: Mathematical statistics in 20th-century America

Statistics in Europe and in the United States acquired the status of a separate field only in the 20th century. Until then, it had provided a quantitative tool for analyzing data in various sciences. In the early 1930s, the founding of the Annals of Mathematical Statistics and of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics served to institutionalize the profession of mathematical statistics in the United States, and helped to distinguish it as a discipline independent from the social sciences which had previously supported it. This paper examines the American mathematical statisticians' attempts to delineate the boundaries of their profession, focusing on their association with the social sciences, on the founding of the Annals and of the IMS, and on the profession's continuing advancement during World War II. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.