Lydia Sesemann
Lydia Maria Sesemann (born February 14, 1845 in Vyborg , † March 28, 1925 in Munich ) was a Finnish chemist of German descent. She was the first Finnish woman to receive a doctorate degree.
life and work
Lydia Sesemann was born in Vyborg in 1845 as the daughter of the wholesaler Mikael Carl Sesemann. His second wife and her mother was Antonie (Antoinette) Williams from Munich. The family was large and consisted of three daughters and three sons from their first marriage and four daughters and three sons from their second marriage. The Sesemann family belonged to the German trading company in Vyborg, whose ancestors immigrated from Lübeck in 1661 . The family also spoke the German language for generations, which later made studying in Zurich easier for Lydia Sesemann .
According to her biographical information, which she submitted to the University of Zurich, Lydia Sesemann was taught at a private school.
Her father died in 1865. The mother then moved to Stuttgart with her daughters Lydia and Helene Christina , where she lived between 1867 and 1877. Lydia Sesemann took private lessons in mathematics and Latin in preparation for her academic studies .
She began studying chemistry at the University of Zurich in the philosophy faculty in the winter semester of 1869–1870 . She was the first woman to study chemistry at the University of Zurich . In the spring of 1874, she defended her dissertation on dibenzyl acetic acid and a new way of synthesizing homotoluic acid in organic chemistry . Her doctoral thesis was supervised by Professors Victor Merz and Wilhelm Weith .
In 1877 Lydia Sesemann published a presentation of her research results in the central chemical journal Reports of the German Chemical Society . She stayed at the University of Zurich until 1877 and her research was mentioned in the journal Chemisches Central-Blatt that same year . In the same year she moved to the Physics and Chemistry Laboratory at Leipzig University in Leipzig and was the first woman to be accepted into the German Chemical Society . From 1896 to 1901 Lydia Sesemann lived with her sister Helene in Munich. From 1903 to 1907 the sisters lived in Lausanne , from where they returned to Munich, where Lydia Sesemann died in 1925 at the age of 80.
Publications (selection)
- About benzylated and dibenzylated acetic acid, 1873 in Reports of the German Chemical Society , Volume 6, Part 2, limited preview in the Google book search
- About dibenzyl acetic acid and a new synthesis of homotoluic acid , 1874 in the quarterly journal of the Natural Research Society in Zurich
Web links
- Maja Engman: Sesemann, Lydia ( Swedish ) Biografiskt lexikon för Finland (Biographical Lexicon for Finland). Retrieved October 31, 2018.
- Arno Forsius: Lydia Maria Sesemann ( Finnish ) Naisten Ääni. Retrieved October 31, 2018.
Individual evidence
- ↑ FIRST WOMEN helsinki.fi
- ^ Matriculation edition of the University of Zurich
- ^ Conrad Hans Eugster: 150 Years of Chemistry at the University of Zurich , Chimia , 2008, 62, no. 3, p.84 Female Students of Chemistry
- ↑ a b Reports of the German Chemical Society VOLUME TENTH. JANUARY - JUNE 1877
- ↑ Anita Kildebæk Nielsen, Soňa Štrbáňová: Creating Networks in Chemistry: The Founding and Early History of Chemical Societies in Europe , Royal Society of Chemistry ; 2008, ISBN 978-0854042791 ; Page 129 limited preview in Google Book search
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sesemann, Lydia |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sesemann, Lydia Maria |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Finnish chemist and first Finnish doctorate |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 14, 1845 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vyborg |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 28, 1925 |
| Place of death | Munich |