Not a pioneer, but a humble, sensible woman - portrait of the first Hungarian female mechanical engineer, Vilma Mahrer

The first Hungarian female mechanical engineer, Vilma Mahrer graduated ninety-five years ago at the BME Faculty (or as it was called that time: Department) of Mechanical Engineering. She was the third woman, who graduated at BME (the first one was a civil engineer, while the second one was an architect). Some newspapers interviewed her, but this humble, young woman did not seek the spotlights. Even the archives tell a very little.

The time, when the contemporary newspaper-reading public got to know her, was when the daily newspaper Az Ujság interviewed with her in the apartment of her parents, one day after her graduation.

Why did you decide to be an engineer? – asked the Az Ujság. Her childhood friends were ambitious girls, ’all of them planned to be a professional’, Mahrer replied, ’to study to be a teacher, a doctor, an industrial artist, or a painter.’ Although her parents would have liked her rather stay at home, Vilma had a passionate interest in science, technology and engineering, and she did not imagine herself as a girl ’waiting for the fianceé at home.’ The fact that she would be the first female mechanical engineer inspired her even more.

Even though the university life was tougher for her than her male peer students, as ’they could meet, and solve more complicated tasks together, while I was struggling on my own.’ But, if she succeeded with the exercises, even more delighted. In addition, she had a difficult start. From the autumn of 1918, she could only enrol as a so-called ’exceptional student’ for some classes, as women had the freedom of study at the field of technology at a university, only after December 1918.

At the time of her graduation ceremony, professor Gusztáv Szabó, the dean of the Mechanical Engineering Department, highlighting, that he ’warmly welcomes the first, very first, and in the foreseeable future, the sole Hungarian female mechanical engineer. […] Then I came home, hugged and kissed my mother and father […] and I saw that they were happy, too.’ As she said, it was the happiest moment of her life.

Intriguing, that with Béla Karlovitz, whom we recently have published an article about, studied mechanical engineering at the same time. Mahrer studied there from 1918 until 1923, having her final exams in 1924 and 1925, while Karlovitz from 1922 until 1926), so the first female Hungarian mechanical engineer and the inventor of the MHD technology could know each other.

At the time the contemporary article was published, it was still the period of recession following the WWI and the country’s territorial losses in 1920. Thus, Vilma Mahrer declared, that at first, she has to look for a job. ’Do you know how difficult it is to find a job in this world?’ – Vilma asked the journalist. ’I would like to work in the heavy iron industry or the electric industry… I hope it will succeed.’

 

Gusztáv Szabó, professor

After graduation, Vilma Mahrer started working at the BME Machinery Experimental Station. Its director was professor Gusztáv Szabó. Szabó, from 1918 to 30 years on, was the head of the Department of Agricultural Mechanical Engineering, and also this experimental station, operating from 1890, (its current successor is the BME Department of Machine and Product Design).

After the WWI, this community of professionals had a pioneer work in Hungary, manufacturing power engines and machinery. They developed processes and mechanisation methods for implementing advanced cultivation systems, while their agricultural machine examinations were worldwide accepted. On the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, due to the first subject specialisation in 1932, the mechanical engineering education differentiated into three directions, one of them was about agricultural machinery. Vilma received her first professional experiences here, at an agricultural expo, even drove a tractor. Meanwhile, publishing scientific articles in the periodical Mezőgazdasági Technika (lit.: Agricultural Technology), about abnormal ball-bearings, maintenance of boiler-tubes and pipe-walls, but also agitated for a tractor supervisory authority, and reported about a home combustion machine expo as well.

In a portrait interview, the Budapest daily newspaper Pesti Napló refers her as a sole female engineer of a factory in Budapest: ’since years, in a Váci út factory, a quiet and gentle girl has been working, without any ambition to catch the public attention. She is Vilma Mahrer, the first and sole mechanical engineer in Hungary, whom no one knows about. Because, to her credit, she did not call the attention of the press for her exams, did not flood her acquaintances with photographies of her, in oily clothes, during work, and act for the public, as a romantic, modern pioneer woman at all. She works in the factory, sensibly and quietly, not making a role from her profession […].’

This time, most people have got used to her as a mechanical engineer, though, there were still surprised customers. The article does not tell about the name of the factory, but the Váci út was the high street of the Hungarian industry of the era. It was created by the agricultural and transportation machine and tool manufacturing, the key sectors of the late 1800s’ Austria-Hungary. From the beginning of the 20th century, electric and broadcasting technologies became more remarkable in the area. So Vilma Mahrer was working in the focal point of the Hungarian industry.

She became the member of the Budapest Engineering Chamber in 1936, but unfortunately, we do not know anything about her later professional life.

The fate of the first Hungarian female mechanical engineer was sealed by the Hungarian Holocaust. The exact time of her death is still unknown.

Krisztina Batalka Krisztina/ László Benesóczky

This article could not have born without the help of BME Archives.