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)

cial troubles. ... in case we lived int the ancient Great Hungary, I would not take a stand in favour of numerus clausus; as, however, we live in the restly Hungary, with 2/3 of the country's territory lost, and with the intelligentsia, which had streamed back from there to the 1/3 that remained; there is here a much greater intelligentsia than - to our regret - the country is able to support... In such conditions the need of the numerus clausus law persists."

15 On the other hand, the much asserted "cultural superiority" was to manifest itself, in the first place, against the bordering new countries. ("The Hungarian homeland can be maintained and made great today, in the first place, not by the sword but by culture".)

16 The idea of cultural superiority was a complement to political and economical consolidation and was linked with the ideas of revision (the restoration of the country's former territorial unity) and neonationalism. This contradictory situation contributed to the fact that in Hungary it was difficult for any professional to establish themselves in any given field, the more so for women.

17 Finally, in 1927 a decree was passed, according to which women were not allowed to pursue studies of civil engineering, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering at the Technical University.

18 At the Faculty of Architecture, 5% of the total number of students could be filled up with women, if there were not enough male applicants. The Department of Economics of the Technical University admitted women - within the total number permitted without any limitations. The decree also prohibited introducing additional restrictions apart from those included in the official regulations. After 1927 Etelka Flesch, Paula Ives, Felicia Thier-Szabó and Johanna Wolf were the first students to graduate as engineers. Erzsébet Blum, baroness Nóra Braun (married to Dr. Tivadar Surányi-Unger) and Dr. Beatrix Takaró-Gáli obtained the first Ph. D. Degrees as economists.

1920 It is always a lucky event for a researcher interested in the life-stories of personages from the recent past to find some of the "objects" of research still alive. That was the case with Johanna Wolf, born in 1905, who graduated as architect in 1931. At the age of 91 she gave me the opportunity to interview her and to go through two huge cupboards full of photographs, designs and documents. From these I learnt that Johanna Wolf had started working in 1929, while still a student, for the Hungarian Building Share Company (Magyar Építő Rt), which belonged to the Ganz factory group. Here and throughout her life she was working as a building (contracting) engineer, not as an architect. Among her major works carried out before World War II were the power plant Mátravidék, and an assembly hall of 37 m span width for the Weapon Factory. Among her major works after World War II was the reconstruction of the Ganz Wharf's shipyard. Here she developed, with her colleagues, the type of a