maria von linden
German Scientists People Short and Sweet

Maria von Linden – First Woman to Receive the Title “Professor”

July 18, 2021

Maria von Linden was a zoologist, bacteriologist, the first female student at the University of Tübingen, and the first woman in Germany to receive the title “Professor” in 1910. Though she was never made a full professor.

Early Education

She was born on July 18th, 1869 into a wealthy family. While von Linden received a higher education, it didn’t allow her to study at a university. She couldn’t even get permission to take her “Abitur” exam which was a requirement for matriculating at a university. With the help of her uncle, Joseph Freiherr von Linden who worked in politics, she was allowed to take the exam. The uncle was also the one who was able to obtain special permission for von Linden to enroll as a student at the University of Tübingen in 1892, though obviously not as a full-time student but a “Gasthörerin” (guest student). A stipend by the “Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein” (General German Women’s Association) helped her financially.

Maria von Linden 1894
Maria von Linden, 1894

At the University

The zoologist Theodor Eimer recognized von Linden’s talent, offered her a job in his institute, and became her mentor. She received her doctorate in 1895 with a dissertation about the form and color of water snails.

 

Maria von Linden with her colleagues at the Zoological Institute at the University of Tübingen, around 1902

Maria von Linden worked at several universities as an assistant, most notably at the University of Bonn where she researched tuberculosis. In her work, she researched the antiseptic properties of copper. With the company Paul Hartmann, she developed bandaging material that contained copper and was therefore antiseptic.

However, she didn’t abandon her work in the zoology field and in 1900 received the “Da-Gama-Machado” Prize from the French Academy of Sciences for her work “The colors of butterflies and their causes”.

From a paper that she co-authored with Theodor Eimer and Carl Fickert, 1897 about the genesis of species due to heredity of acquired traits
Patent from 1913

Struggling in Academia

In 1906, Maria von Linden tried to obtain permission to write her habilitation to be able to teach her own classes, hold lectures, and be a full professor. She was denied.

When the department for parasitology was set up, professor Dittmar Finkler advocated for von Linden, and she was put in charge of the department in 1908 and received the title “Professor” in 1910 by the Prussian minister of cultural affairs. However, that did not mean that Maria von Linden was a professor with all rights and responsibilities of a professor, she still wasn’t allowed to teach nor was her pay comparable to that of her male colleagues.

maria von linden
Maria von Linden with her dog, around 1902

Being Downgraded

It wasn’t until 1920 that she received a raise and was able to support herself financially. But in 1928, her position was downgraded to ‘assistant’ and it became obvious that she was regarded dispensable.

When Hitler came into power in 1933, von Linden as a woman in higher education and an outspoken opponent of the regime was forced into early retirement. She emigrated to Liechtenstein where she died of pneumonia on August 26th, 1936.

While Maria von Linden had support from the “General German Women’s Association” and was friendly with the women’s rights activist Mathilde Weber, she was never active in the fight for women’s rights. Her focus was on her scientific work.

Sources and Resources

First Professor Maria von Linden Pioneer Women Scientists