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Vienna: Dr. Olga Ehrenhaft-Steindler, trailblazer & women’s advocate

In examining the history of the University of Vienna, I discovered Olga Ehrenhaft-Steindler was the first woman to receive a doctoral degree in physics from the university in 1903. Who was she? How did she become the first? How did society of the time view the education of young women?

I’m starting a series on women who left their mark on Vienna and Austria, and some of the traces they left behind in the Austrian capital city. With educators, inventors, writers, and scientists, my serial includes: Dr. Marietta Blau; Marianne Hainisch; Hedwig Kiesler, a.k.a. Hedy Lamarr; Dr. Lise Meitner; Dr. Gabriele Possanner; Dr. Elise Richter; and Bertha von Suttner.

Who: Dr. Olga Ehrenhaft-Steindler: b/✵ 28 Oct 1879, d/✟ 21 Dec 1933.
PhD: 1st woman with doctoral degree in physics from University of Vienna, 1903.
Educator: Early 20th-century teacher & advocate for better access to education for young women.

In late 19th-century and early 20th-century Austria and Vienna, Olga Steindler was one of countless women who faced difficulties and challenges by young women who wanted to expand their education and improve employment, all of which were viewed by society at the time as undesirable. Feminism or anything similar did not exist.

Born and raised in Vienna, Olga Steindler departed her home for Prague to complete and pass her final high-school examinations in 1899, because young women were not permitted to do so within Austria at the time. She subsequently enrolled at the University of Vienna to study physics and mathematics within the Faculty of Philosophy. Only two years earlier in 1897 had the University of Vienna finally accepted the enrolment of women, although they were initially allowed only into the Faculty of Philosophy. In 1903, Steindler became the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Vienna after successfully completing her research dissertation.

Completing qualifications for teaching at secondary (high) schools in the same year, she joined the “Athenäum” where she taught young women about experimental physics; she also taught at Vienna’s first girls’ secondary school established by Marianne Hainisch in the city’s 1st district. In 1907, she founded two new schools in Vienna: a girls’ public secondary school in the city’s 2nd district, and a business school for young women in the city’s 8th district. Steindler married her physicist colleague Dr. Felix Ehrenhaft in 1908; she became known as Dr. Olga Ehrenhaft-Steindler. She championed the cause for educating girls and young women, and creating new opportunities in science, business, and society at large. For her dedicated service to the public, Austria awarded her in 1931 the title of “Hofrat” as a new member of the imperial court advisory council, an honour uncommon among Austrian women at the time. At the age of 54, Dr. Olga Ehrenhaft-Steindler died in December 1933 from complications after having contracted pneumonia.

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My Berlin: Humboldt University’s court of honour

Above/featured: Illuminated by autumn morning light, Helmholtz stands proud in the Humboldt University’s “Ehrenhof”.

If you’re in Berlin for the first time, you’ll likely make your way to the city centre and the classic tree-lined avenue Unter den Linden. When you’re not people-watching, you’ll likely admire the architecture along the way. Across the street from Bebelplatz plaza is the main building of the Humboldt University (HU). In its front court or “court of honour” are several memorial statues dedicated to some key figures in the history of arts, sciences, and the university: Hermann Helmholtz, Lise Meitner, Max Planck, and Theodor Mommsen.

The Humboldt University was one of many stops in Berlin during my visit in November 2021.

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Berlin Wannsee cemetery: Helmholtz, Fischer, Conrad

Above/featured: Friedhof Wannsee Lindenstrasse with Andreaskirche in the background.

I came here looking for a physicist, but I also found a Nobel-Prize winning chemist and a successful banker.

In the southwest corner of metropolitan Berlin tucked away under rows of leafy trees in a quiet residential neighbourhood in Wannsee is a small cemetery, next to a tall red brick church Andreaskirche. With the main (east) entrance off Lindenstrasse, the cemetery is called Friedhof Wannsee Lindenstrasse; alternate names include “Neuer Friedhof Wannsee” and “Friedhof Wannsee II.” Opened in 1887, the cemetery is one of the smallest in the city with an area about 1.9 hectares (19-thousand square metres) or a shade under 5 acres.

(My day trip to Wannsee was one element of my “quick” 11-day hop to Berlin in autumn 2021.)

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My Berlin: Alicja Kwade, bridging art and science

Above/featured: Alicja Kwade exhibition, at the Berlinische Galerie. HL:X70.

In mid-2021, the world slowly climbs out of the worst of the pandemic. Later that autumn, I watch DW Culture’s Arts.21 feature on Polish-German artist Alicja Kwade whose work strikes a personal resonance. I have to go see her work and exhibition in person, but would it even be possible? My answer arrives six weeks later with a quick jump home to Berlin.

All of Kwade’s sculptural pieces in her exhibition, “In Abwesenheit” (In Absence)”, are “self-portraits.” But none of them show her face; the pieces aren’t necessarily simple, nor are they “selfies” characterized by the present vernacular. She is not physically present, and yet, every piece provides the visitor a glimpse into her mindset including questions she raises about the volatility of the human condition and about where we fit within a very large universe.

As former scientist, I love and recognize the influences on her art. She is clearly very interested in mathematics, physics, astrophysics, biology, genetics; but she’d be the first to admit she’d need multiple lives to completely fulfill all of her interests. The deconstruction of “self” into precise scientific elements is another way of expressing those (dreaded) “selfies” or self-portraits. I admire the clever play: it’s the breakdown into those elements that tell us what she is, and it’s the measured synthesis of those elements into the broad strokes of her sculptures that tell us who she is.

We’re all playing this game. Everyday things seem so important. But then you zoom out and realize that you’re standing with another billion [people] on a spinning sphere. With that perspective, you’re reminded to just be glad you’re here at all.

– Alicia Kwade about her rooftop commission at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art: Artnet News, 16 April 2019.

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Albert Einstein, Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Dům U Kamenného beránka, At the stone lamb, Staromestske namesti, Old Town Square, Prague, Prag, Praha, Czech Republic, fotoeins.com

My Prague: Brod, Einstein, & Kafka at Fanta Salon

Above/featured: it’s as if I just pointed out a famous meeting place to her right (left for the reader).

Prague’s Old Town Square is one of the most visited landmarks, dominated by the two tall spires of the Church of our Lady before Týn, Old Town Hall, and a prominent sculpture dedicated to Czech icon Jan Hus at the centre of the square.

At the southeast corner of the square is a building called (Dům) U Kamenného beránka or “At the Stone Lamb” at address Staroměstské námesti 551/17 ^#. To the right of the building’s main entrance is a memorial plaque with an inscription in both Czech and English. The memorial plaque was created by Czech sculptor Zdenĕk Kolářský and unveiled in 1998. Looking closer, you’ll recognize Albert Einstein’s face and his famous physics equation stating mass-energy equivalence and written in cursive script: E = mc².

Over a 16-month period from 1911 to 1912, Albert Einstein lived in Prague with his family and was full professor of theoretical physics at the German Charles-Ferdinand University. Einstein enjoyed hanging out at a number of cafes for conversations, exchanges, and music, and he was a frequent visitor to this building where Czech liberal and intellectual Berta Fanta operated a literary-philosophical salon or lounge. The salon saw visits by many intellectuals, both domestic and international. “Domestic” writers Franz Kafka and Max Brod would have come here for the discourse as well, but it turns out little is actually known about whether all three arranged to meet or would have met here at the same time.

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