Gertrud Kornfeld
Born(1891-07-25)July 25, 1891
Prague, Austro-Hungarian Empire
DiedJuly 4, 1955(1955-07-04) (aged 63)
Rochester, New York, U.S.A.
Alma materKarl-Ferdinands-Universität, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität
Known forPhotochemistry
Scientific career
InstitutionsKarl-Ferdinands-Universität, Königliche Technische Hochschule, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Eastman Kodak Company

Gertrud Kornfeld (July 25, 1891 in Prague – July 4, 1955 in Rochester, New York) was a German chemist. She was the first and only woman to become a Privatdozent in chemistry in the Weimar Republic.[1]

After the Nazis banned Jews from holding academic positions in Germany in 1933, she moved to England and then to the United States where she worked for the Eastman Kodak Company. Her main areas of research were photochemistry and reaction kinetics.[1][2]

Education

Gertrud Kornfeld grew up in a middle-class German-speaking Jewish household in Prague, which was at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She studied chemistry from 1910 to 1915, at the German school of the Karl-Ferdinands-Universität in Prague. She received her doctorate in 1915[1] with the dissertation Über Hydrate in Lösungen (On hydrates in solutions)[3] and was employed as an assistant to her advisor Victor Rothmund.[1] She worked first as a demonstrator, and from 1914 to 1918 as an assistant.[4]

Germany

In October 1918, at the end of World War I, Czechoslovakia was formed as one of the countries succeeding the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Kornfeld left Prague in 1919 and got a job as a trainee assistant to Max Bodenstein at the Königliche Technische Hochschule in Hannover, (later the Technical University of Hanover).[1][5]

In 1923 Kornfeld moved with Bodenstein to the Institute of Physical Chemistry at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (later the Humboldt University of Berlin). In 1928 Gertrud Kornfeld habilitated in chemistry in Berlin. She was the first and only woman to become a Privatdozent in chemistry at a university in the Weimar Republic.[1]

On April 7, 1933, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service in Germany was passed, banning Jews from holding public positions, including teaching positions.[6][7][8] Along with nearly one-third of the University of Berlin's teaching staff and nearly half of its private lecturers, Kornfeld was deprived of her teaching license and any further possibility of employment in German academia.[9]

England

Kornfeld was able to emigrate to England in 1933.[10] She apparently received some assistance from the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL) at the University of Birmingham.[5][1] The SPSL, which was initially known as the Academic Assistance Council, formed in London in 1933.[11] Kornfeld was on the List of Displaced German Scholars compiled by the SPSL and published in 1936.[1][12]

She also received support from the British Federation of University Women (BFUW) in London to teach at the University of Nottingham. In 1934 she received an emergency German Scholar Residential Fellowship for a year, from a fund raised by the BFUW specifically for German exiles. This allowed her to do research at the Imperial College London in South Kensington. In 1936, she received an International Fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), enabling her to study in Vienna.[10][13][14]

United States

Relocation, for younger women, was perhaps easier. Kornfeld was older and better established in her field in 1933.[9] Even with positive recommendations from Max Bodenstein and physicist Friedrich Paschen,[15] it was difficult for her to find a new position at her level and in her specialization. She initially resisted the idea of teaching at a women's college, or going into industrial research.[9]

In 1937, Esther Brunauer of the AAUW vouched for Kornfeld, enabling her to travel on a visitor visa to the United States. There she found a position in the research laboratory of the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York. Her specialized knowledge of photochemistry was valued,[10] and she became head of a small research group. She was able to continue her career successfully in spite of the repeated political upheavals that had affected her.[1] In 1948, Kornfeld was honored as a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, for her work at Kodak.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Vogt, Annette B. (2011). "Gertrud Kornfeld (1891-1955)". In Apotheker, Jan; Sarkadi, Livia Simon (eds.). European Women in Chemistry. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9783527636464. Retrieved 5 Dec 2011.
  2. ↑ Adam, Thomas (2005). Germany and the Americas : culture, politics, and history. ABC-CLIO. p. 585. ISBN 9781851096282. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  3. ↑ Schmidt-Böcking, Horst; Templeton, Alan; Trageser, Wolfgang (June 14, 2018). "Otto Sterns Lebensdaten und Chronologie seines Wirkens" (PDF). Otto Sterns gesammelte Briefe – Band 1: Hochschullaufbahn und die Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Springer-Verlag. pp. 236–237. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  4. ↑ "Gertrud Kornfeld 25.7.1891 - 4.7.1955". Humboldt University of Berlin. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  5. 1 2 Rechcigl, Jr, Miloslav (November 9, 2017). Beyond the Sea of Beer: History of Immigration of Bohemians and Czechs to the New World and Their Contributions. AUTHORHOUSE. ISBN 978-1546202387.
  6. ↑ Manjapra, Kris (Jan 6, 2014). Age of Entanglement : German and Indian Intellectuals Across Empire. Harvard University Press. pp. 86–87, 251. ISBN 9780674725140. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  7. ↑ Stackelberg, Roderick; Winkle, Sally A. (15 April 2013). "Article 1 First Regulation for Administration of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service". The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts. Routledge.
  8. ↑ Freidenreich, Harriet Pass (2002). Female, Jewish, and educated : the lives of Central European university women. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253340993.
  9. 1 2 3 Vogt, Annette (2003). Nekvasilová, Jana (ed.). "Von Prag in die "neue Welt" — die Wege der Chemikerin Gertrud Kornfeld". Acta Historiae Rerum Naturalium Necnon Technicarum. 7: 281–97. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.470.1908.
  10. 1 2 3 Oertzen, Christine von (April 30, 2016). Science, gender, and internationalism : women's academic networks, 1917-1955 (1st ed.). Springer. pp. 131, 164. ISBN 978-1-137-43890-4. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  11. ↑ Zimmerman, David (March 2006). "The Society for the Protection of Science and Learning and the Politicization of British Science in the 1930s". Minerva. 44 (1): 25–45. doi:10.1007/s11024-005-5405-8. S2CID 144003010.
  12. ↑ Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars (1936). List of Displaced German Scholars. London: Speedee Press Services, Ltd. p. 21. ISBN 9780893704742. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  13. ↑ "Einstein, AAUW, and Getting Jewish Women Scientists out of Nazi Germany". American Association of University Women (AAUW). Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  14. ↑ "Scientific Notes and News". Science. 81 (2096): 223–226. 1 March 1935. doi:10.1126/science.81.2096.223-a.
  15. ↑ Deichmann, Ute (March 1999). "The Expulsion of Jewish Chemists and Biochemists from Academia in Nazi Germany". Perspectives on Science. 7 (1): 1–86. doi:10.1162/posc.1999.7.1.1. S2CID 57566498. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  16. ↑ "2 EK Scientists Chosen For Academy Honors" (PDF). Kodakery. January 22, 1948. p. 2. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
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