PhDr. Mgr. Ing. Vít Holeček, MBA, DiS., Ph.D.

This paper describes the development, activities, and both the scientific and social contributions of the Masaryk Academy of Labour, Czechoslovakia’s first technically oriented scientific institute and a major centre of the science at that time. It marked the first time an institution devoted to science and engineering had ever been established in the territory of what would eventually become the Czech Republic. Coming on the heels of Czechoslovakia’s independence at the end of the First World War, it succeeded the pre-war Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences and was integrated with the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts and the newly established Czechoslovak National Council as the youngest of the Czech scientific institutions. In 1952, it was merged with other institutions to form the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, the predecessor of today’s Czech Academy of Sciences. The significance of the Masaryk Academy of Labour lay mainly in its targeted, practical application of science and engineering.

Kapitola se zabývá myšlenkami a koncepty souvisejícími se zřízením „národního“ archivu zvukových nahrávek v Československu probíhajícími od 30. let do 50. let 20. st. a jejich odrazem v dílech vybraných osobností kulturního, literárního a akademického světa včetně spisovatele Karla Čapka, muzikologů Mirko Očadlíka a Vladimíra Helferta a novináře Emanuela Uggého. Speciální pozornost je věnována kontextu a jejich motivacím k propagaci institucionalizace národního zvukového archivu, zamýšleným funkcím navrhovaného archivu a klíčové roli, kterou měl stát v těchto snahách hrát. Tato kapitola také přibližuje dynamiku politických, ekonomických a společenských změn v Československu během 40. a 50. let 20. století, která ovlivnila nové vize a plány vedoucí ke znárodnění gramofonového průmyslu či vznik hudebních diskoték v knihovnách po celé republice.

Masaryk Academy of Labour was established in 1920 as the first academic institute associating technicians and engineers on the Czech (Czechoslovak) territory. It was a technical work centre which task was to organize that work for economic using of abilities of all people and natural wealth of the Czechoslovakia. In 1952 in connection with the change of political regime this institute was integrated into newly established Czechoslovak Academy of Science. Organization of work, rationalization, standardization and normalization and efforts to create the economic plan of the Republic were the main activities of this academy. Women perform important role in that time in Technical Academy. And not just any women! Woman´s journey to education was much more difficult than men at that time. This study presents 8 educated women who played significant part in the activity in the first technical academy in the Czech lands. All of them, through their efforts, purposefulness and diligence, have succeeded in developing their disciplines and so they showed the world that not only men but even women are able to succeed in the field of science and technology. Masaryk Academy of Labour supported financially and administratively even work and scientific internships of The First Republic young Czech engineers in large American industrial plants. Through this activity the Masaryk Academy of Labour tried to develop technical elites in young Czechoslovak Republic. The only brave woman who got the chance to complete this American internship was the first university educated civil woman engineer in Czechoslovakia Ing. Marie Zubaníková. She succeeded in the United States of America, it´s seen by the fact that she was working as a designer in building company Building Material Dep't Lears Roebuck in Chicago from 1925 to 1929.

The Masaryk Academy of Labour (MAL) was founded in 1920 as the first academic institution for Czech (Czechoslovakian) technicians and engineers. It was the centre of technical work whose aim was to organise it so that the skills of all people would be used as well as the natural resources of Czechoslovakia in an economical way. Due to the change of political system, the institution became part of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Science in 1952. As an academic technical institution, the Masaryk Academy of Labour influenced also the development and adjustment of high school education and university technical education in the form of independent proposals. Thanks to its Commission for the Democratisation of Education, it supported the professional development of technically skilled workers in the form of practical handbooks and lectures. There was also the Commission for the Problem of Unemployed Technically Skilled Workers, whose aim was to find how to use the abilities of unemployed technicians. Last but not least, it also financially and administratively supported work placement schemes and academic residency programmes of the Czech engineers in American major industrial plants, such as Ford’s Plant in Detroit, etc. By all these activities, the Masaryk Academy of Labour contributed to the development of the engineering elite in the newly formed Czechoslovakian Republic. The aim of the article will be to introduce the activities of the above mentioned Commission for the Democratisation of Education.

The Masaryk Academy of Labour was constituted under an act of law from 1920. It was the first academic scientific institution uniting technicians and engineers in the Czech lands and the centre of technical labour in the Czechoslovak Republic. The academy was mainly focused on practical and theoretical activities in the area of natural sciences, agriculture, civil and mechanical engineering, chemical technology and public technical administration. The main difference between the academy and other academic institutions in the Czechoslovak Republic was the accent on applied research. This academic scientific institution existed in Czechoslovakia until 1952, when it was incorporated in the newly founded Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The most important international relations which the Masaryk Academy of Labour maintained were with Yugoslavia (the Masaryk Academy of Labour helped to create a similar local academy of engineering in Yugoslavia) and the United States of America. The archive fund of the Presidium of this technical academy, which is deposited in the archive of the Czech Academy of Sciences, provides the records of sending the Czechoslovakian engineers of the First Republic to a work-based and research trainings to great industrial plants, e.g. Ford’s factories in Detroit, etc. This fund also contains the reports of the young engineers about their industrial practice abroad. This article will present the details about these trainee programs.