Dixie Lee Bryant or, as it should be called, Dr. Dixie Lee Bryant – this name has been forgotten today, even in Erlangen. If the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg had its way, a street should soon be named in honor of the woman from the United States who made history here 120 years ago.
Dixie Lee Bryant was a pioneer who is still a role model for women in science today. The University of Erlangen has therefore remembered her extraordinary life. Dixie Lee Bryant was the first woman to receive her doctorate in Erlangen – in 1904, at a time when men dominated the academic world and only a few women had already received their doctorates at other Bavarian universities. In the year before her doctorate, Prince Regent Luitpold allowed women to enroll at Bavarian universities for the first time. Until then they had only been tolerated as guest auditors.
Dixie Lee Bryant’s academic career began in Bavaria as a guest student in botany, physics and geology. Despite her talent for algebra and geometry, which was already evident at school, and despite her motivation and passion for geology, Dixie Lee Bryant was denied access to universities in the southern United States. Only later was she able to complete her bachelor’s degree in geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – also as the first woman to do so. Nevertheless, there were strict limits to her academic progress in the USA. That was the reason why she decided to leave her homeland and go to Germany.
However, studying abroad at the beginning of the 20th century could not be compared with today’s exchange programs such as Erasmus. Such a step meant giving up everything, leaving friends and family behind, and embarking on an arduous journey by ship. All of this in the uncertainty as to whether enrolling at a university in Europe would even be possible. Therefore, only a few dared to complete their studies in a foreign country in a foreign language.
For Dixie Lee Bryant, however, this venture was crowned with success. Her application for admission to the Friedrich-Alexander University was accepted and she was the only woman able to earn a place in the young research team led by the geologist Hans Lenk. This is how she made her way to her doctorate on the rocks of Spitsbergen, which she successfully completed after just three semesters in 1904.
Dixie Lee Bryant’s dissertation was entitled “Contributions to the Petrography of Svalbard”.
(Photo: FAU)
In the same year, Dixie Lee Bryant returned to the USA with a doctorate in geology. But even though she was the only faculty member with a doctorate at the North Carolina State Normal Industrial School, as a woman the doors to an academic career were still closed to her. Dixie Lee Bryant subsequently worked as a teacher for more than 25 years.
Today, in Bavaria as well as in the USA, it is a given that women study, do doctorates and teach at universities. This is also thanks to pioneers like Dixie Lee Bryant, who undeterred sought their path and their place in science.
Nevertheless, even after 120 years, the goal of equality in the academic world has not yet been achieved. To date, only about one in five professorships in Bavaria is occupied by a woman. A Dixie Lee Bryant Street in Erlangen could also commemorate this in the future.