Adrienne Sophie Rayl (1898–1989) was an American mathematician and one of the few women to earn a PhD in mathematics in the United States before World War II.
From there she enrolled at New Orleans Normal School finishing with a teaching diploma, and again she graduated first in her class, in 1917.
The work required to complete her undergraduate and graduate degrees while teaching in the New Orleans public school system had taken her 22 years.
[1] Beginning in 1934 in Chicago, Rayl studied for five consecutive summers and full-time during the academic year 1936–1937, to complete her dissertation under Walter Bartky in August 1939.
and although there were only 116 students enrolled, it was a wonderful opportunity for the working man to attend our evening classes.