What was it like to be a woman scientist in Germany in the 20th century?

Brief biographical accounts of three remarkable German women scientists: Clara Immerwahr Haber, Ida Noddack-Tacke and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, portray a sense of the cultural milieu in which women scientists struggled in the last hundred years to succeed. The significance of the role of marriage is revealed, as well as alluding to the difficulty to be a scientist and at the same time a mother.

Clara Immerwahr Haber was born in 1870 in Breslau (previously part of Germany, now Wrocław in Poland) from an upper-middle class Jewish family. Her father was a chemist. Clara Immerwahr was the first woman at the University of Breslau to graduate with a doctorate, which she received in 1900 in physical chemistry with magna cum laude. In 1901 she married fellow chemist Fritz Haber and soon afterwards fell pregnant. Her son, Hermann Haber, was born in 1902. Societal norms and a husband who appears to have ruthlessly prioritised his own ambitions in their marriage and family life prevented her from continuing her scientific research. She nevertheless supported her husband by contributing to his research and by translating some of his work into English, mostly without recognition.

Weiterlesen...