Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Boltzmannstraße 22
14195 Berlin
E-mail: coertzen@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
Title: | Dr. |
Prename: | Hedwig |
Surname: | Kohn |
Profession: | Physicist |
Birthday: | 04/05/1887 |
Place of birth: | Breslau |
Date of death: | 1964 |
Place of death: | Durham, NC |
Education: | 1906–13 university studies (physics) in Breslau; 1913 doctorate |
Career: | 1914 assistant researcher, 1915–33 senior assistant in Breslau; 1920–21 scholarship, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin; 1930 university lecturer qualification (*Habilitation*) in Breslau; 1933 banned from teaching; 1933–39 industrial physicist in Breslau (for example research for OSRAM); 1939 escapes to the United States with the help of her colleagues and the International Federation of University Women (IFUW); 1940–41 lecturer at Greensboro College, NC; 1941–51 professor at Wellesley College, MA; 1946 US citizenship; 1952 retirement; until 1963 research associate at Hertha Sponer’s laboratory, Duke University, Durham, NC |
Memberships: | German Federation of University Women (DAB) |
Biographical literature: | Brenda P. Winnewisser, “The Emigration of Hedwig Kohn, Physicist, 1940,” *Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftsgeschichte* 18 (1998): 41–58; Brenda P. Winnewisser, “Hedwig Kohn—eine Physikerin des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts,” *Physik Journal* 2 (2003), no. 11: 51–5; Annette Vogt, “Hedwig Kohn,” in *Einsteins Kolleginnen—Physikerinnen gestern und heute*, ed. Annette Vogt and Cornelia Denz (Bielefeld: TeDiC, 2005), 25–7 |
Major works: | *Über das Wesen der Emission der in Flammen leuchtenden Metalldämpfe* (diss.; Breslau: Grass, Barth & Co., 1913); *A Study of Optical Cross-Sections of Various Elements Based on Line Intensity and Temperature Measurements in a Flame Source* (with E. Hinnov; Lancaster, PA: n.p., 1930) |