Technikatörténeti szemle 23. (1997-98)

TANULMÁNYOK - Vámos Éva Katalin: Women’s Opportunities of Studying and Practising Engineering in Hungary from 1895 to 1968 (On the example of Budapest Technical University and its women students)

during the short-lived bourgeois-democratic revolution. This, namely, granted equal educational possibilities to women and men by the decree issued on December 7, 1918. In January 1919, the equally short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic opened, by a decree, the possibility to women of becoming "private docents".

10 However, as soon as in autumn 1919 the rector of the Technical University banned women from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering by virtue of his own sphere of authority. On February 27,1920, István Haller, Minister of Religious Affairs and Public Education, settled the situation of those already enroled in the following way: "Until further disposition women cannot be admitted to the Technical University as regular students. However, those women, who have been regular students of the Technical University in the Academic Year 1918/19 may continue and finish their studies according to the regulations of the study and examinations rules."

11 The first 4 women, who had studied at Budapest Technical University were as follows: Marianne Sternberg-varnay as architect (born in 1898 and graduated in 1925); Eszter Pécsi from Kecskemét as engineer (born 1898, degree 1920); Vilma Máhrer as mechanical engineer (born in Budapest, 1901, degree; 1925). Irma Simonyi-Hajós's name can be found in the university records of 1920/21.

12 Data as to how these women were able to utilize their degrees in engineering and economy, respectively, are not in all cases available. E.g. Eszter Pécsi (Kecskemét, 1898 - New York, 1975) attended the Berlin Charlottenburg University from 1915 to 1919 and, when studies at Budapest Technical University were temporarily made available to women, she finished her studies as architect at the latter institution. She was interested, in the course of her career, in the first place in steel-concrete structures. Several of her studies were published in the journal "Tér és forma" (Space and Form). In one of her papers dated 1939 she wrote about "The steel-concrete structure of the National Social Security's blocks of flats in Madách street." A number of congress reports written by her were published, too. From the well-known public buildings of Budapest she made the construction designs of the indoor swimming pool in Marguerite Island, the Hospital of Traumatology in Fiumei Street and the Hospital of the Insurance Company for Private Employees MABI in Kútvölgyi Street. All this work had been started at the Engineering Office Guth & Gergely. Later she opened up a designer's office of her own. In 1922 she married the architect József Fischer. After World War II she became structural chief engineer to the Design Institute of the Ministry of Metallurgy and Machine Industry, while her husband was Government Commissioner for Reconstruction and President of the Capital's Board of Public Works. In 1947