Biografies of Famous Austrian Women in Science

The present volume adds up to the results of the lexicon Wissenschafterinnen in und aus Österreich. Leben Werk Wirken (Hg. Brigitta Keintzel / Ilse Korotin, Böhlau Wien/Köln 2002) that was published in 2002. On the basis of 342 biographies which were treated biographically and bibliographically by specialists of different disciplines, the various fields of scientific activity of the first generation of female scientists at the universities of Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck, of the first female lecturers and professors as well as female scientists in the academic and non-academic field were explored. The present collection focuses mainly on the womenspecific activity within the Austrian history of science after 1945 (dates of birth 1930-1950, additional earlier age-groups). A common target of the complete research is a clarification of the situation of the woman in the scientific area as well as the development of a grounded basis for further researches in the field of the feministic history of science and womens research. The focus lies on questions which dont present the Austrian history of science as the history of a few outstanding personalities but try, with the help of a systematic reviewing of the contribution of female scientists, to close the existing gaps in the historiography of the history of science. Within the chronological emphasis one can find the theoretical and personal impacts of the impulses of the second womens movement and its established womenspecific formulation of questions at the universities in the 1970s. The ongoing documentation project biografiA. datenbank und lexikon österreichischer frauen currently consisting of 20.063 biographical records, funded since 1998 by the BMWF at the Institut für Wissenschaft und Kunst, served as a basis. Within this collection 3.169 names can be connected to the areas of cultural sciences and humanities as well as to the natural sciences. Further scientific biographies can be assigned to the medical, pedagogical, artistic and technical fields of the standardised Main occupation group. This highly differentiating practice of assignment is relevant as an academic scientific career- in relation to the growing number of female university graduates- is only feasible for a minority or rather the scientific occupation can often not be made the main occupation.