Marie Fabiánová (1872–1943) was a Czech mathematician, teacher and school principal, suffragette and feminist. She was the first female doctor to graduate from the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles-Ferdinand University, the second female graduate of the university and one of the first Czech women to obtain a university education.

Biography

Fabiánová was born 11 February 1872^[1] in Železné Brod into the family of Václav Fabián, the chief engineer of the Austrian Northwestern Railway, and his wife Juliena, née Haklová. She had two siblings. After graduating from a bourgeois school, she began studying in Prague at the newly opened (1890) first private girls' grammar school in Central Europe, Minerva.^[2]

After graduating from grammar school in 1895, she began to study mathematics at the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague under Professor František Josef Studnička.^[2] Until 1900, girls attended lectures for residential studies (without the status of regular students); in 1900, a new law enabled girls to take exams for the entire period of their studies. Fabiánová graduated in November 1901 with a thesis in analytical mathematics becoming one of the first women to earn a PhD in mathematics in the country.^[2][3][4] In 1902, Anna Honzáková, a classmate of Fabiánová from Minerva, became the first graduate of the Faculty of Medicine of Charles-Ferdinand University.^[2]

After that, Fabiánová started teaching mathematics, physics and German at the Minerva gymnasium.^[2] At that time, the teaching profession was associated with a promise of celibacy, so Fabiánová never married. She lived together with her sister Juliana Fabiánová.

In 1923, she became the director of the Second Czech Girls' Real Municipal Gymnasium (from 1930 until its abolition in 1949 the Real Gymnásium of Charlotte Masaryková), separated from Minerva in the same year. She held the position until she retired in 1929.

In retirement, she began to participate in Czech social activities: she was a member of the Union of Czechoslovak Mathematicians and Physicists, the Association of Academically Educated Women and the Minerva Association.^[2]

Marie Fabiánová died on 7 April 1943 after a long illness in the General Faculty Hospital in Prague at the age of 70.

Selected publications

Scientific works

• On the discovery of Zeeman. Journal for the cultivation of mathematics and physics. 1893. online.
• On the development of diperiodic functions in infinite sums and products, in series and products. Dissertation. FK Studnička. 1900.

Literary works

She allegedly used the pseudonym Dr. Abby Faimon.

• FAIMONOVA Abby History of Austrian education. Part 1-2 of the Šolc handbook for teachers of public and municipal schools.

References