Li Xia

Jinan, Qing Empire

Li Xia *Chinese: 立夏* (March 7, 1879 - August 30, 1911) was a Chinese American mathematician and activist, best known as one of the founding members of the Tritian company in 1905, and for her murder six years later which sparked national interest.

## Early Life

Li Xia was born in Jinan, in the Qing Empire on March 7, 1879. Her father, Yixi worked as a laborer while her mother, whose name is unknown, took care of her and her brother. Her mathematical abilities were stifled by her lack of opportunity in her early life, as due to illness she was unable to attend school regularly for a number of years. In 1890 her mother died, and her father went into a deep despair. It was around this time that the family was converted to Christianity by German missionaries. She began classes at a school run by the missionaries, and was soon working as a teachers aide. Her father had made plans to send her and her brother to the United States, where her uncle was.

In 1899, at the start of the Boxer Rebellion, the Li family fled east, along with other Chinese Christians. It was during this that her father and brother were killed by either boxers or Qing soldiers. Having managed to escape, she eventually met up with the German army. She had to accept horrible mistreatment in order to secure escape to Europe

During the three years she spent in Germany, she worked various jobs for next to nothing, including a number of tutoring jobs, for which she began to earn a reputation as a premier mathematics tutor. In 1903 she traveled to England, where she departed for the United States. She arrived in New York on July 31, alone and with few belongings. She eventually struck up conversation with a man named James Robertson, and they learned that they had both been on the same boat. In a queue, they later met Edmond Dowd, Li Erming (to whom she had no relation), and Elane Dawson. Finding themselves to all be scientifically minded, the group regularly met up over the ensuing months, each helping the others with their ideas and hypotheses, with Li often being asked to double check calculations, which she did so in her head. They also provided help with her English, which upon arrival was very broken, and she became fluent in less than two years. She also became romantically involved with Elisabeth Stone after meeting her at a suffrage rally she attended with Dawson.

## Tritian

Beginning in the spring of 1905 Li and Robertson worked closely to develop plans for a business, before finally opening up to the group in October. After a few months of planning, the five opened the Tritian Technician Supply Company, with the help of some investors and acquaintances of Robertson. Initially, Li was dissatisfied with her preoccupation with the business aspects of the company, and so Wilson Osco was brought on to act as the CEO and General Manager of the company.

## Murder

On August 30, 1911, Li was murdered in the apartment she shared with Stone sometime after she awoke in the early morning. The perpetrator had broken the lock on her bathroom window and was able to surprise and subdue her. She was beaten, then strangled, her body was stripped and her limbs were cut off. Because there was no evidence of sexual assault, the crime was thought to be racially motivated; at the time there had been a series of attacks against Asian immigrants on the east coast, though none had escalated to murder.

## Personal Life

Li was a lesbian, and had a long relationship with fellow activist Elisabeth Stone, which lasted until her death.

Li was a polygot, fluent in Mandarin Chinese, German, French, and English, the latter two of which she mastered within the same two years. She also held a working proficiency of Spanish and Italian, and at the time of her death was also beginning to pick up Russian.

Evidence suggests that Li was a human calculator, able to perform complex mathematics in her head, and even more complex math on paper. During the early phases of planning for the Tritian Calculator she would jokingly suggest that they were trying to replace her. After her death, the Xia Li Computer Laboratory bore her name.