Wissenschafterinnen in und aus Österreich: Leben – Werk – Wirken

In the present bio – bibliographic collection the life and work of female scientists, working in Austria or being originally from Austria, have been the center of research. The temporal focus extends primarily from the turn of the century to the post-war period. The first generation of female scientists at the Universities of Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck were explored. The first generation of women who achieved a habilitation in Austria, as well as the first female lecturers and professors were collected in their completeness. Those “classical” science careers can be compared with those of men. However, a detailed consideration was also given to the non- academic area. From a total of 331 lexicon articles about one-third is dedicated to the medical, psychological and therapeutic field. Due to the historical turning points of the two world wars persecution, flight, emigration and also re-migration of the female scientists move into the focus of numerous of the individual biographies. The question of similarities and differences, according to different living conditions and opportunities to those who remained in Austria, is obvious. Beyond the individual biographical aspect, a historic impression about cultural and political trends and their impact on scientific research and teaching is provided. Especially from a feminist perspective, the lexicon is a desideratum, as it is the first time that in Austria the participation of women in the production and placement of science during the considered period got comprehensively researched and documented. With the help of the variety of the textual contributions the overall concern was to depict the wide emancipation movement in the fields of education and the sciences rather than the history of a few female scientists working in specific fields. Clearly the multiple dimensions in which women could develop their scientific abilities were a focal point thus the personal and private life circumstances got rather set aside to provide the interested reader with a comprehensive interpretation of their scientific contributions. The numerous biographies written by authors specialized in the relevant areas grant an insight into a fascinating diversity of horizons of experiences and life patterns as well as into the scientific interest, which determined their various scientific careers. This women-specific lexicon introduces an alternative perspective on the Austrian history of science, where female contributions so far were mainly under-represented. Eventually the lexicon due to its interdisciplinarity and its representation of the forced exile of many female scientists, achieves to contribute to a broader understanding of the interconnectedness of the Austrian tradition of science with the inter/national culture- as well as the science transfer.