The recent release of a video on Richard Courant and the Courant Institute at N. Y. U. reminds us of the very rich scholarly atmosphere imported to the United States from Europe in the 1930s and 40s.  Among those making this journey was Olga Taussky-Todd, a fellow student with Gödel in Vienna. 

Being born in Olmütz, Austro-Hungry and ending in Pasadena, California, Olga's life spanned most of the 20th century (1906-1995).  She was possibly the first woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Vienna (1930).  Her thesis on number theory was published in "Crelle's Journal" in 1932.  To earn money she often tutored students.

Being "professional" she had the luck to meet Richard Courant at a meeting of the German Mathematical Society.  In 1931 she was appointed by him to edit the first volume of Hilbert's complete works on number theory.  Moving to Göttingen she also assisted Emmy Noether.  Courant advised her to leave Germany.  Within the years of 1931-1935 she tutored in Vienna, lived in Göttingen, crossed the Atlantic to Bryn Mawr College, returned to Cambridge, England and then moved on to London.  In London she soon met another mathematician and future husband, John (Jack) Todd, an Irishman full of the blarney.  Be reminded this was before travel by airplane.

"My life and my career would have been so different if my Irishman had not come along."

Those of us living in the Caltech community will always remember Jack and Olga with a tremendous amount of love.  They lived near campus and usually walked to work.  They rarely walked alone or side by side.  Jack was always in front, even on wide walkways or at the swimming pool.  Olga followed perhaps 5 feet behind.  This resulted in two greetings to those they passed on the street, first from Jack who always was full of charm and then from Olga, often wearing a floppy hat but always having a smile and dancing eyes.  Together they rarely missed a mathematics department colloquium or Caltech party.  In a way they were almost icons for a pair of academics in the 1950s, very comfortable with themselves and their roles in life.

In addition to both Todd's papers and oral histories, the Caltech Archives has several interesting items that deserve to be enjoyed by a wider audience of mathematicians.

Lecturing at Caltech in 1961.

Her Ph. D. diploma from the University of Vienna:

When the recently graduated Taussky went to work with Courant in Göttingen in 1931, he bought her a travel iron.  According to Jack,  Courant told Olga she "had to take more care of her appearance." The iron appears never to have been used.

This portrait of Olga Taussky-Todd was painted by Clara P. Ewald in Belfast, November, 1939. She was 33 years old.

The Austrian Cross of Honor in Science and Arts, First Class 1978