Otto and Hans Pettersson in Sweden. Source: Agnes Rodhe, personal archive.

The blueprint from the ground floor of the Radium Institute. Source: Archiv der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna.

The Vivarium, the research center for experimental biology, Biologische Versuchsanstalt was considered among the most prestigious biology research center in Europe. Source: Archiv der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna.

Even today one can find material reminiscencent of radioactive sources dated before the end of the First World War at the Radium Institute. Here is a bottle of uranium nitrate packed at St. Joachimsthal and stored at the cellar. Source: Maria Rentetzi, 2004.

The façade of the Radium Institute as it was planned to be built. Source: Archiv der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna.

Victor Hess, the first Ordentliche Assistent at the Radium Institute, where he carried work on cosmic radiation. In 1919 he received the Lieben Prize for his discovery of “ultra-radiation” (cosmic radiation), and in 1936 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Source: Central Library for Physics, Vienna.

Rudolf Holoubek at the Radium Institute, c 1925. Source: Agnes Rodhe, personal archive.

The Institute for Radium Research in 1910. On the left side, construction of the physics institute had already started. Source: Archiv der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna.

Physicists at a coffee shop in Vienna, c 1910. Source: Central Library for Physics, Vienna.

The scintillation counter designed by Berta Karlik in 1933. (P) is the source, (G) is a mica filter, (S) is the scintillation screen and attached is the photoelectric cell leading to an electrometer. Source: Berta Karlik, “Eine Lumineszenzmethode zur Untersuchung der Reichweite von alpha-Strahlen,” Sitzungsberichte Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, Abteillung IIa, (1933) 142: 115–119.

The bridge that connects the Radium to the Physics Institute. Source: Maria Rentetzi, 2004.

The blueprint of the first floor of the Radium Institute. Source: Archiv der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna.

The advertisement of the Radiumwerk Neulengbach. Source: Archiv der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna.

Right after the First World War, some of the personnel and practicum students were photographed on the roof of the institute, and Friedmann is shown among them. From left to right: Eleonore Albrecht, Anna Gabler, Friederike Friedmann, Grete Richter, and behind her, Maria Szeparowicz, Hilda Fonovitz, and Erwin Schrödinger. Hans Thirring is sitting while Ludwig Flamm (left) and Victor Hess (right) are standing behind at the back. Source: Central Library for Physics, Vienna.

Georg Hess in uniform next to Robert Lawson, an Englishmen who came to work at Meyer's institute in the end of 1913. With the outbreak of the First World War, Lawson was trapped in Vienna. Source: Central Library for Physics, Vienna.

Victor von Lang on his 70th birthday at the University of Vienna in 1908. In the front row sit some of his women students. Source: Central Library for Physics, Vienna.

Victor Hess still at the Radium Institute in 1916. Source: Central Library for Physics, Vienna.

It is probably Fraulein Gabriele Rabel at the Physics Institute in Türkenstrasse in 1909. Rabel, the daughter of a prosperous Viennese lawyer, studied biology and worked on experimental physics at the University of Vienna. Source: Central Library for Physics, Vienna.

Following the trend of the early-twentieth-century advertisements, which rarely dealt in subtleties concerning racial issues, this article quite literally advertised radium's power to “bleach the Negro.” Source: Radiology Centennial, Inc

Chart 5: Enrollment of female students at the philosophical, medical, and law faculties at the University of Vienna for the academic years 1933–34 and 1938–39