Tag: 20th century

Gerty Radnitz Cori – Nobel Prize Winning Biochemist

Gerty Radnitz Cori
Gerty Radnitz Cori

In the late 19th century after universities began admitting women, there were still challenges to overcome. Most secondary schools for girls focused on social graces and being a good conversationalist but didn’t prepare them for entrance to the university. When Gerty Radnitz at 16 decided that she wanted to go to medical school, she was completely unprepared. She overcame this disadvantage to become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine and the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize.

Gerty Theresa Radnitz was born August 15, 1896, in Prague which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Her family was Jewish and moderately well off. Her father, Otto Radnitz, was a chemist who invented a method for refining sugar and managed several beet sugar refineries. The oldest of three girls, Gerty was tutored at home until the age of ten when she went to finishing school. Recognizing her talent, her uncle who was a physician encouraged her to go to medical school. With the help of family and tutors, over the next two years she accumulated the equivalent of 5 – 6 years study in Latin, mathematics, physics, and chemistry in preparation to take her entrance exams. She passed and at 18 enrolled at the German branch of the Charles Ferdinand University at Prague.

During her first year of university, Gerty discovered two things that changed her life: biochemistry and Carl Cori. Carl was the son of Carl Cori, a physician, and Martha Lippich. His father went on to get a doctorate in zoology and do research at the Marine Biological Station in Trieste where he was the director. He often took the younger Carl with him on field expeditions to do research and gather specimens. Trieste, in what is now northern Italy, was a diverse area where Carl was exposed to people of different backgrounds and developed what he called “immunity to racial propaganda.” The fact that Gerty was Jewish and he was Catholic didn’t bother him at all, but it would play a role later in their lives.

For two years they studied together and enjoyed taking trips for hiking or skiing, until in 1916, Carl was drafted into the Austrian army. In 1918, assigned to a field hospital for infectious disease, he saw first hand the effect of disease on the troops, as well as the impact of the Influenza pandemic sweeping the world. The Cori family had a history of scholarship, with a number of professors on both sides of the family. This combined with his sense of helplessness in the face of disease contributed to his desire to do research. Once the war was over, Carl and Gerty were reunited and received their medical degrees in 1920. They also published their first joint paper, beginning a collaboration that would last for their entire careers.

After receiving their degrees, they traveled to Vienna where they were married, and Carl and Gerty were both able to obtain positions doing post-doctoral research. The post war years were difficult. Research was a low priority and supplies were hard to obtain. Carl was one of the few able to do research, because his father sent him a bag of frogs. Gerty worked in pediatrics doing research on thyroid and blood disorders. The conditions were poor, however. She worked only for meals which were not very nutritious, causing her to develop a vitamin A deficiency. The fact that Gerty was a woman and Jewish, even though she had converted to Catholicism when she married made finding a position very difficult. Carl became even more uneasy about the situation in Europe when he was required to prove his Aryan ancestry for a position at Graz. They began considering moving to the United States.

Photo from the Smithsonian Institution Archives via Wikimedia Commons

After working in different cities, Carl in Graz and Gerty in Vienna, any position would only be acceptable to Carl if he could obtain a position for Gerty as well. Carl and Gerty Cori were ideally suited as research partners. William Daughaday of Washington University School of Medicine said “Carl was the visionary. Gerty was the lab genius.” In personality, they were the reverse of Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie. Carl was somewhat shy, relaxed, and a slower more contemplative thinker. Gerty was outgoing, vivacious, and a brilliant quick thinker. She was also more ambitious than Carl and more demanding in the lab.

Finally, in 1922, Carl obtained a position at the Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease (later renamed the Roswell Park Memorial Institute), in Buffalo, New York. Gerty was given a position as an assistant pathologist. Although they worked in different labs, they continued the practice of publishing papers together, even though Gerty was told more than once to stay out of Carl’s lab. Eventually, the benefit of allowing them to work together was acknowledged and the breach in protocol was overlooked. During their time in Buffalo from 1922 to 1931, Carl and Gerty established their reputations and became US citizens.

Gerty and Carl were primarily interested in studying insulin and the production of energy in the body. If you remember your high school biology, the Cori cycle explains how the body breaks down glycogen into glucose for use in muscles and converts lactic acid back into glycogen for storage in the liver. The discovery and explanation of this process in 1929 would be the basis for their Nobel Prize in 1947. This research, however, wasn’t a good fit for the work being done at the Institute, which was primarily focused on cancer research, so together the Cori’s began looking for other positions.

In spite of the fact that Gerty had published frequently, individually in addition to jointly with Carl, he began to receive job offers, not Gerty. Most of these offers, including those from Cornell and the University of Toronto, did not include a possibility for positions for her. At the University of Rochester, Carl was offered a position under the condition that he stop collaborating with his wife. Gerty was even taken aside and told that she was hindering his career because it was “un-American” for a husband and wife to work together. In fact it was very common for women to work in conjunction with their husbands during this time, although it was usually as low or unpaid “assistants” meaning that the wife rarely received recognition for her contribution. This was unacceptable to both Carl and Gerty.

Finally in 1931, they received job offers from the Washington University medical school in St. Louis. Even though Carl became the chairman of the pharmacology department, Gerty was only offered a position as a research associate at one-fifth the pay. Still they were able to collaborate and would remain at Washington University for the remainder of their careers doing groundbreaking research in glycogen utilization and with enzymes. During World War II, the demand for women scientists increased due to the reduced work force and Gerty finally became a full professor.

From left to right Dr. Carl F. Cori, Dr. Joseph Erlanger, Dr. Gerty T. Cori, and Chancellor Arthur H. Compton. Photo taken in 1947.
Copyright © Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine

Gerty and Carl were supportive of other scientists as well, hiring women and Jews when other universities and even other departments at Washington refused to do so. Eventually, the work done in their lab resulted in eight Nobel Prizes, including a joint prize for Carl and Gerty in Physiology and Medicine. Over time, Carl became more involved in writing, directing research of students, and administration, and running the lab became exclusively Gerty’s domain. As with many passionate people, she was not always liked or easy to work for. She demanded precision. The work and the results demanded it.

Both of the Coris impressed others with their depth of knowledge about a wide range of topics. For most of her time at Washington, Gerty had 5 – 7 books delivered weekly to her from a local lending library. Every Friday she would prepare her list for the next week. She loved history and biography, while Carl was a poet and read archeology and art. She was the one who constantly read journal articles and kept people in the lab up-to-date on new findings in biology and related fields.

The Coris worked hard, but also tried to leave work at the lab. They entertained, kept a garden, and continued enjoying the outdoors. It was on a mountain climbing trip in 1947 that Gerty first fell ill and they discovered she had a disease that would eventually take her life. Her bone marrow was no longer producing red blood cells. She worked almost to the end. Her only concessions to the disease were taking time out for the blood transfusions that were necessary, and setting up a cot in her office where she would lie down to do her reading. Gerty Cori died at her home on October 26, 1957.

Resources
Nobel Prize Women in Science by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
American Chemical Society National Historic Chemical Landmark

Read about other Famous Women in Math and Science

Irène Joliot-Curie – For the Joy of Science

In 1925, Irène Curie walked into an auditorium of 1000 people to defend her dissertation. This was big news because she was the daughter of two time Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie. The pressure could have been enormous, but as usual Irène was calm, confident, and dressed unfashionably! From an early age, Irène had dealt with her parent’s fame both positive, such as when at the age of six she calmly told the reporter who came to the house that her Nobel Prize winning parents were at the laboratory, and negative when a classmate handed her a newspaper article about her mother’s affair with Paul Langevin. She had come to see fame as something external and of no real importance. She didn’t pursue her research for fame, but for the sheer joy of the science itself.

At first glance, Irène was a quiet, shy child, some might even say somber, but as time would show, she just had little energy or attention for things that in her mind didn’t matter or that bored her. Born in September of 1897, her parents Pierre and Marie Curie were in the midst of their most intense period of research. In spite of this, she was a wanted and welcome addition to the family. Limited time and resources, however, did mean that the young parents needed help, and this came in the form of Pierre’s father, Eugene Curie. Pierre’s mother died shortly after Irène was born, so Eugene moved into the house to take care of her.

Eugene was a more openly affectionate person than either Marie or Pierre, and gave Irène, and later her sister Eve, born in Paris in 1904, much of their emotional foundation. Irène later said that many of her values and beliefs about religion and politics came from her grandfather rather than her mother. When Pierre died in 1906, Marie was so distraught that she wouldn’t let his name be spoken around her. Eugene helped the girls by talking to them and teaching them about their father. After Eugene died in 1910, Marie, Irène, and Eve became much closer and remained close for their entire lives.

Irene Curie as a child with her mother and sister Copyright © Association Curie Joliot-Curie

In spite of a more reticent personality, Marie and Eugene agreed on many things. Because of his unique personality and abilities, Pierre’s parents had home-schooled him, and Marie felt that the same approach would be better for Irène. To supplement the public school, she organized a cooperative among other scientists and academics to provide classes in their homes for their children. The subjects ranged from mathematics and science, to literature and art. Emphasis was put on creativity, play, and self-expression. Other physical and practical activities weren’t neglected either. Marie made sure the girls learned to cook, knit, and sew, as well as to swim, bicycle, and ride horseback. Irène was especially athletic. She took long backpacking trips during the summer, frequently swam the Australian crawl in the Seine, and could dance until early in the morning. It didn’t phase her that backpacking and the Australian crawl were considered men’s sports.

From an early age it was clear that Irène was very much like her father. Among her friends she was calm and relaxed, but she was less comfortable with strangers, rarely smiling in public. Her thought process was much like his as well, not as quick as Eve, but a deep analytical thinker. It was also clear that Irène would be good at science. After the cooperative ended, Marie continued to teach Irène mathematics to give her the foundation she needed, even sending problems back and forth in the mail when Marie was away at conferences. After a couple more years in public school, Irène finally entered the Sorbonne to study science.

In 1914, World War I interrupted Irène’s studies. Marie had written to Irène saying that she hoped they could both be of service, so when her mother developed a mobile x-ray unit, she went into the field to help operate and maintain them. But to say that she helped her mother is to greatly understate the situation. The need was so great that they worked independently of each other. Irène went to the front to set up, repair, and operate the units. Often they were used during surgery to help locate shrapnel in the body. When she wasn’t at the front trying to convince experienced military surgeons that a teenaged girl knew more about x-rays and geometry than they did, she was training other technicians. In spite of spending her eighteenth birthday alone at the front, she seems to have handled this time with composure and a confidence that is rare, although her mother never doubted her. Irène later said, “My mother had no more doubts about me than she had about herself.”

Irene and her mother Marie Curie working at a hospital in Belgium in 1915 Copyright © Association Curie Joliot-Curie

Once the war was over, Irène returned to the Radium Institute, run by Marie, to continue her research and study. Here in 1924, just before receiving her doctorate, Irène met Frédéric Joliot. Two years her junior, Frédéric was outgoing and charming. According to their daughter Hélène, they were “opposites in everything.” He was from a big family, had a wide variety of interests, and was much more sociable than Irène, but they shared some very important things. They loved outdoor sports, had similar political views, and loved science. When they were married in October of 1926, they had lunch at Marie’s apartment and went back to work.

Irène and Frédéric worked together for the rest of their lives and collaborated on their most important work. As with other creative teams, their approaches were very different. He moved quickly from one idea to the next, taking creative leaps, while Irène was slower in her thought process, but moved steadily toward logical conclusions. Several times they made important discoveries, but didn’t interpret the information correctly. One of these experiments was similar to that done by Otto Hahn which was interpreted by Lise Meitner leading to Hahn’s Nobel Prize. Finally, in 1935, Irène and Frédéric Joliet-Curie received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of artificial radioactivity.

In the intervening years, Irène had given birth to a daughter, Hélène in 1927, and to a son Pierre in 1932. She loved being a mother and in many ways was traditional, but she maintained her career. Although Marie died in 1934, she had lived long enough to see the experimental results that she knew would ensure her daughter a Nobel Prize. So in 1935, their lives were marred by only one thing – the growing Fascist threat in Europe.

After 1935, Irène and Frédéric no longer collaborated directly in their work. Frédéric took a position at the Collège de France where he worked in nuclear physics, building a cyclotron and raising funds for scientific research. In this position he became very powerful and contributed greatly to France’s ability to produce nuclear energy. Irène became a professor at the University of Paris, but continued as the research director at the Radium Institute. She also got involved in politics and joined several women’s rights organizations.

Irene and Frederic Joliot in 1934 photo by GFHund for Wikipedia

When the Popular Front, an anti-Fascist coalition, was elected in 1936, Irène was offered and accepted the position of under-secretary of scientific research, making her one of the first women cabinet members in France. As the war progressed, Frédéric joined the resistance and eventually, the Communist party because it was the most active anti-Fascist group in the country. Irène’s activity, however, declined. For almost twenty years she had suffered from tuberculosis and was having to take more and more time away from work and in the Alps on the “rest” cure. Finally, Frédéric, as head of his resistance organization, was forced to go underground and arranged to have Irène and the children smuggled into Switzerland, on June 6, 1944.

After the war, Frédéric was considered a hero, and appointed head of France’s Atomic Energy Commission with Irène as a commissioner. Irène was able to obtain streptomycin to cure her tuberculosis and continue her work for women’s rights and as director of the Radium Institute. For a while things were good, but by 1950, the Cold War was gaining ground and anti-communist sentiments were growing. Both Irène and Frédéric found themselves out of favor and for the first time outside the scientific community. Frédéric was fired from the Commission, and unable to obtain other scientific work, began to work for peace organizations. Irène was at least able to continue her work at the Institute, but the years of work had taken another toll.

Like Pierre and Marie before them, Irène and Frédéric were both suffering from the effects of prolonged exposure to radiation. Their health declined steadily in the 1950s. Even though Marie continued to work and worry about Frédéric’s health, she was finally unable to ignore the effects. On a trip to the Alps, Irène became ill. Returning to Paris, she checked in to the hospital and on March 17, 1856, Irène died of leukemia. Frédéric was too ill to see her for more than a few minutes. He died two years later. By this time the worst of the red scare was past and they were both honored with national funerals. They had spent their lives doing what they loved.

“I discovered in this girl whom other people regarded somewhat as a block of ice, an extraordinary person, sensitive and poetic, who in many ways gave the impression of being a living replica of what her father had been. I had read much about Pierre Curie. I had heard teachers who had known him talking about him and I rediscovered in his daughter the same purity, his good sense, his humility.” ~ Frédéric Joliot-Curie about Irène

Resources
Nobel Prize Women in Science by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie by Barbara Goldsmith
Marie Curie – early life
Marie Curie – scientific discoveries and Nobel Prize

Read about other Famous Women Mathematicians and Scientists.

Bess Truman – Harry’s One True Love

Bess Truman - special photo taken just before Harry went to war in 1917
Bess Truman – special photo taken just before Harry went to war in 1917

I like Harry Truman. I might not agree with all the decisions he made as President, but I like the person he was. One thing I like about Harry is that once he set his mind to something, he did it, if at all possible. He never let discouragement derail him. He failed frequently, but didn’t let that keep him from trying something different. One thing that seemed impossible from the beginning was winning the heart and hand of Bess Wallace.

Elizabeth Virginia Wallace (Bessie to the family) was born in Independence, Missouri on February 13, 1885. Her parents, David Willock Wallace and Margaret Elizabeth Gates Wallace (Madge), were both well liked in the community, but were certainly not equal in social standing. Bessie’s maternal grandfather, George Porterfield Gates, owned a milling company that distributed flour throughout the Midwest. Her paternal grandfather, Benjamin Wallace, had been a politician serving as mayor of Independence and in the Missouri state legislature. Benjamin Wallace died eight years before Bess was born, and although the Wallace’s were a part of her life, their influence would fade in comparison to that of the Gate’s clan. George Porterfield Gates was against Madge marrying David, but gave in when they threatened to elope. He was afraid that David Wallace wouldn’t be able to support his daughter in the manner to which she was accustomed. He was right.

Bessie at age 5

When Bess was two years old, the family moved to a house on North Delaware St, a very fashionable address two blocks from the Gate’s family home. As the first grandchild, she was petted and spoiled by her Gates grandparents and aunts and uncles. Bess was easy to love and dote upon. She was a bright, pretty, and outgoing child with golden hair and blue eyes. Three brothers followed to compete for this attention: Frank Gates Wallace (1887), George Porterfield Wallace (1892), and David Frederick Wallace (1900).

Bess was a happy, active girl. She excelled in sports as the best tennis player in Independence, an ice skater, horsewoman, and the champion slugger on her brother’s baseball team. Madge Wallace tolerated her daughter’s athletic activities as long as Bess maintained the appropriate activities for a proper young lady, which she did. Bess attended dance classes and the entire round of social functions in Independence. She did well in school, but when it came time to go to college, as many of her friends made plans to go away, it became clear that Bess’ father couldn’t afford to send her.

Bess at age 13

Financial difficulties weren’t the only strains in the home. In the mid 1890s, another girl was born, but died within a few years. Madge had always been considered “delicate”, so by the time Bess was in high school, she was taking on more and more responsibility for her younger brothers. From the outside, things may have looked fine. David Wallace was outgoing and still involved in politics. He would play with the children and was always involved in celebrations, from setting up fireworks displays to riding at the head of parades on his black horse. Bess adored him, but his financial difficulties began to get the best of him and he started to drink. The final child, David Frederick born in 1900, only added to the strain.

David Wallace held on for another three years, but early on the morning of June 17, 1903, he got up, went into a bathroom at the back of the house and shot himself in the head. It’s hard to know exactly what went through his mind, but the years of struggling to keep up, of depending on his father-in-law to give him money, and of fulfilling Gates’ negative expectations, added to his increased drinking must have all contributed to his feelings that he couldn’t go on. The family was devastated. Mary Paxton, Bess’ best friend and next door neighbor, went over that morning to be with her. Together she walked with Bess in silence as she paced with clenched fists for several hours.

David Wallace’s death and subsequent funeral were agonizing for the family, especially for Madge. He had been the presiding officer of the Knight’s Templar, so his funeral was elaborate and well attended, but the local newspaper also wrote an article giving gruesome details of his death. Add to that the realization that he had left the family deep in debt, and Madge couldn’t handle it. She and the children moved in with her parents, but soon after the funeral left Independence to visit a relative and stayed away for over a year.

As you would expect, Bess’ father’s suicide changed her life in a number of ways. From a practical standpoint, she found herself, at age eighteen, the effective parent of her younger brothers. She also began to feel a sense of responsibility for her mother that would last for the rest of her life. On another level, although she never blamed her mother, she began to think about her parent’s relationship, what it lacked, and what she would want in a marriage, if she ever found anyone to marry.

Bess at high school graduation

After the family returned to Independence, although Madge remained basically a recluse, Bess began to become socially active again. She spent a year at the Barstow school, a finishing school for young women that prepared them for college, although many went there just to round out their high school education. Bess had suitors, but no one seemed to meet her requirements. Then in 1910, a young man knocked on the door to return a cake plate for his cousins, who were neighbors of the Wallace family. That young man was Harry S. Truman.

The way Harry told it, he had fallen in love with Bess when her first saw her in Sunday School, when she was five and he was six. Over the school years, he had never had the nerve to do more than carry her books home from school a few times, but there had never been another girl for him. In the intervening years, Harry had his own challenges and had changed quite a bit. In school he had never been athletic, probably in part to protect the eyeglasses he had to wear from the age of five; he played the piano; and he, according to his own account, “read every book in the Independence library.” His own ambitions to go to West Point were dashed partly because he would never have passed the eye exam, but also because his father lost all his money and Harry had to work to help support the family. After a time working in Kansas City, his father asked him to come home and help him run the farm that Harry’s mother had inherited with her brother. So the Harry that showed up at the Wallace home that night was suntanned and fit in a way that the younger Harry never was.

Their courtship began that night, but would last for quite a few years. After about a year, Harry proposed, in a letter. After 3 weeks of silence, Bess refused. Harry responded by thanking her for letting him down so easily, saying that he didn’t really think “that a girl like you could ever care for a fellow like me,” and continuing to write. Harry Truman didn’t discourage easily.

Bess had made it clear that she expected anyone she married to be able to support her, and Harry became focused on making money. He tried several schemes which didn’t pan out, and signed on as a partner to his father’s business, which eventually left him with more debt. In the meantime, Harry and Bess continued to write almost daily, and he had a standing invitation to her house on Sundays. In his characteristically honest way, he told her about life on the farm, but he also let her know that he was no country bumpkin, writing about operas, symphonies, and plays that he had seen when he lived in Kansas City. They discussed literature and exchanged book recommendations and criticisms.

Harry S. Truman around 1917

Finally, in the fall of 1913, Bess told Harry that if she married any man it would be him. He was elated and determined that he would be able to establish a home for her that she could be proud to live in. But everything seemed to work against him. On the farm it was the weather, then his investment in a zinc mine didn’t pan out. Then in 1917, it looked like everything might come together for them. They both invested money in an oil company and things were going very well, until the US entered WWI. The stock in the oil company immediately dropped causing them to lose almost all the money they had invested, but worse than that for Bess was that Harry felt he had to do his duty. He had re-enlisted in the National Guard, and in August he was admitted into the US Army and was scheduled to go to Europe.

Although, several of her friends got married before sending their beaux off to war, when Bess mentioned it, Harry now refused. He did not want her to be stuck with a “potential cripple.” They did however, after all these years, in spite of Madge’s objections, announce their engagement. Bess had a special photograph taken to give to Harry when he went to war. He carried it with him for the rest of his life, first into battle in his shirt pocket, and later it always had a prominent place on his desk. (This is the photo at the top of the post.)

Harry returned safely, and on June 28, 1919, at the ages of 35 and 36, Bess and Harry were finally married. They were faithful to each other throughout all the difficulties in the coming years: a failed business, taking care of Madge, and Harry’s unexpected presidency. Bess had found in Harry a man who would be open with her about all those difficulties, as well as a man who wouldn’t give up in the face of obstacles.

Harry and Bess Truman on their wedding day June 28,1919 (source)
Harry and Bess Truman on their wedding day June 28, 1919 (source)

One note of irony, however, after they were married they moved into Madge’s house “temporarily,” but lived there for the rest of their lives whenever they were in Independence.

Harry S. Truman painted by Greta Kempton (1903 – 1991)
Bess Truman painted by Greta Kempton (1903 – 1991)

Lise Meitner – Nobel Prize Denied

In December of 1938, Lise Meitner received a letter from colleagues in Germany explaining their latest experimental results and questioning what these results could mean. For almost 30 years Lise had worked with Otto Hahn, and later Fritz Strassman, performing experiments related to radioactivity. Although she had begun as Hahn’s assistant without pay, their relationship had evolved to the point where she was the recognized expert in matters related to physics; Hahn was a chemist.

Lise’s nephew Otto Frisch was visiting for the holidays and together they discussed the letter she received. Researchers working on radioactivity had known for some time that one element could change into another, such as radium to polonium in Marie Curie’s experiments. But recently several researchers, when bombarding uranium with neutrons, had been finding elements with smaller atomic weights, almost half the atomic weight of uranium. At the time no one believed that the nucleus of an atom could be split. Hahn and Strassman’s research repeated this result. Meitner realized that this was exactly what was happening and that the power that would result from a chain reaction would be immense. Together she and Frisch worked out the mathematics and she conveyed the information to Neils Bohr who was on his way to the United States for a conference. And the rest as they say is history.

I knew this basic scenario when I began to read about Lise Meitner, but as usual there is more to the story. Lise Meitner was born in Vienna in 1878, the third of eight children born to Philipp and Hedwig Meitner. Philipp, a freethinker and humanist, was one of the first to become a lawyer in Vienna after the professions were opened up to Jews. Hedwig was an accomplished pianist. Their home was filled with music and interesting people. When asked about her childhood Lise remembered all “the unusual goodness of my parents, and the extraordinarily stimulating intellectual atmosphere in which my brothers and sisters and I grew up.”

The educational opportunities available to Lise were similar to those available to Emmy Noether in Germany; they consisted primarily of training that would enable a girl to become a good wife and mother. Public education ended for girls at age 14 and they were not admitted to the universities, so there were no secondary preparatory schools for girls. Lise wanted to study physics and her father agreed to pay for tutors if she would complete a teacher training course first. There were few employment opportunities for men or women in physics, and since Lise had shown little interest in marrying this would give her a way to support herself.

Lise Meitner in 1906

Lise studied constantly and by 1901 when Vienna allowed women to enter the university she was able to pass the entrance examinations at the age of 23. Over the next six years, she completed her doctorate in physics and published several papers related primarily to radioactivity. She also spent a year practice teaching French in a girl’s school to ensure a backup means of support. She was fortunate to study under Ludwig Boltzmann in Vienna. He was an inspiring lecturer and a proponent of atomic theory when it was still controversial. Unfortunately, he died in 1906, but he had inspired Lise to continue studying physics if at all possible.

Looking for a direction to go in her study, Lise applied to work with Marie Curie, but was rejected. In 1907, Max Planck in Berlin agreed to allow her to audit his lectures. Although Planck’s experiences with women in the sciences had been good, he wasn’t really in favor of it. He did, however, welcome Lise into his home where he had twin daughters her age. Here she would find friendship and music during her stay in Germany. One of the friends she made through Planck was Otto Hahn. Hahn was a chemist working on radiochemistry at Emil Fischer’s Chemistry Institute. He needed a physicist to work with and proposed this idea to Lise; she accepted and they began what would be a very productive working relationship.

Under conditions that will sound familiar if you’ve read my previous posts, Lise began working without pay as Hahn’s assistant at the Fischer Institute. The catch – Fischer didn’t allow women in his facility. (One reason was that he had the idea that women’s hair styles were a fire hazard.) He did “compromise” and let her work in a basement room which had been a carpentry shop and had an outside entrance; she was not allowed upstairs and had to use a toilet down the street. This meant that she couldn’t attend lectures or observe Hahn’s experiments. In spite of this, they published several papers together. In 1908, German universities were opened to women and she was finally allowed to enter the building (and they installed a toilet for women!)

Meitner and Hahn in their laboratory

Hahn and Meitner worked well together. At first she was deferential to him, but over time she became the recognized leader of their partnership, in the area of physics. In 1912, they moved to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, a facility funded by German industrialists. She was still unpaid, but Planck was able to get her an assistant position grading papers at the University with a small salary. Because she was developing a good reputation, the University of Prague offered her a position of associate professor with the possibility for advancement. As a result the Institute finally decided to give her a salary, although at the time still less than Hahn, so she decided to remain in Germany. Finally in 1917, Meitner became the head of her own department of radiophysics at the Institute.

The 1920s and 30s were a “golden era” in physics and Meitner was a prominent part of that. Einstein referred to her as “our Madame Curie” and Wolfgang Paul, a 1989 Nobel Prize winner considered her “a really great scientist” and the superior of Hahn. During this time she and Hahn primarily worked apart, but in 1934, she began experiments that required the expertise of a chemist and Hahn agreed to collaborate again. A number of scientists, including Meitner and Hahn, Enrico Fermi, and Irene Joliot-Curie, began their experimentation with uranium.

Solvay Conference in 1933. Lise Meitner is the second from the right, seated. The other two women in the photo are Irene Joliot-Curie, seated second from the left, and Marie Curie, seated in the center.

Unfortunately, Lise wasn’t competing only with other physicists. In 1933, Jews such as Emmy Noether were expelled from university positions. Although Jewish, Meitner had been baptized a protestant and had an Austrian passport. This, and the fact that the Wilhelm Institute was not a government facility, gave her some protection. This ended however, when Hitler invaded Austria and the Institute was under increasing pressure even from within by Nazi-sympathizers. She now found herself with an invalid passport and a tenuous job. Friends abroad worked feverishly to find her a position and finally in 1938, she slipped over the border into the Netherlands with only a few possessions and moved on to take a position in Sweden.

Hahn and Meitner continued consulting via letter with one secret meeting in Copenhagen in November to plan experiments. These experiments resulted in the letter of December 1938, which she discussed with Otto Frisch. In the letter, Hahn does not draw conclusions and in fact questions the results. Meitner trusted Hahn’s results, he was an excellent chemist, and accepted the obvious conclusion, and that the atom had split. Hahn published his experimental results without drawing conclusions and without crediting Meitner, a move which she understood; he couldn’t officially collaborate with a Jew. She and Frisch published their conclusions soon after along with corroborating experimental results by Frisch. In their paper they coined the term fission to describe what had happened.

Meitner’s recognition of the principle of fission was momentous. When Frisch described the theory to Bohr, he slapped his head and said “Oh what idiots we’ve been.” Understanding the experimental results and knowing that the German’s had the information prompted action within the physics community and then the Allied governments. Meitner was eventually offered a position with the Manhattan Project, which she refused having no desire to work on a bomb.

Everyone in the physics community recognized what Lise had done. Although she wasn’t there for the final experimental results, she had originated the project, gathered the team, worked on it for almost 4 years, and interpreted the final results. Nevertheless, only months after publication Hahn began denying that Meitner had been an important part of the discovery at all. Then in 1944, the Nobel Committee voted secretly to give the Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Hahn, and Hahn alone, for the discovery of nuclear fission. No one disputed that Hahn deserved it, but everyone in the physics community knew that Meitner deserved a Nobel Prize as well.

Lise Meitner continued to work in Sweden until her retirement, when she moved to England to be near her relatives. In spite of the hurt of Hahn’s betrayal, and Lise’s intense criticism of the scientists who had collaborated with the Nazis, they remained friends. Her family didn’t inform her of Otto Hahn’s death in July of 1968 because of her frail condition, and she died later that year in October. Although denied the Nobel Prize, she led a very fruitful life with recognition from her peers and the love of family and friends. Her nephew Otto Frisch had her tombstone inscribed with the statement, “Lise Meitner: a physicist who never lost her humanity.”

Resources
Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics by Ruth Lewin Sime
Nobel Prize Women in Science by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking by William H. Cropper

Read about other Famous Women Mathematicians and Scientists.

Eleanor Roosevelt – A Late Bloomer

There are many biographies about her, multi-volume biographies, as well as biographies about her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt which of necessity include her. I am certainly not an expert on her and there are people out there who are; people who have a better understanding of what motivated her to achieve the things she did. And she did achieve amazing things. But part of what I wanted to do when I started this blog was to write about women who inspire me. That doesn’t mean I always agree with them, but that I see something in their lives that I believe is of value and worth talking about. With Eleanor Roosevelt, I happen to agree with much of what she did and stood for.

Eleanor Roosevelt inspires me in many ways, and there are many lessons that we can learn from her life I’m sure, but one thing that I love about her is that she in some respects was a late bloomer, coming into her own power if you will after marriage and motherhood. She was a shy child born to parents who were a hit in society and the talk of the town. Her mother was a celebrated beauty and her father was the life of the party, but she wasn’t either of these things.

Eleanor’s father, Elliot Bulloch Roosevelt, was the younger brother of President Theodore Roosevelt. Both Roosevelt brothers, as well as their oldest sister, had health problems when they were young. Theodore is famous for pushing himself to overcome his problems, but Elliot’s were not as easily understood. He suffered from spells when the blood would rush to his head and he would have incredible pain; he also took “nerve medication.” These spells seemed to be worse when he was under stress and better when he was away from the family, or school, traveling. Despite his problems, the family was a loving one, full of fun and joy. Elliot embodied this with the force of his charming personality.

Eleanor’s mother, Anna Hall, was from a very different type of family. Her father was very religious and had little respect for his wife intellectually. He required submission and restricted the activities of the women, even to the point of having dresses brought to the house for them to try rather than allowing them to go out to buy their own clothes. He died when the children were all still at home, leaving Anna’s mother ill-equipped to deal with much in her life. Anna received little in the way of education that was not necessary for her to be successful in society. She was the oldest of six children and a celebrated beauty, but was reserved and somewhat cold.

At a young age Eleanor was aware that her mother was beautiful and that she was not. (Although, I think she is very pretty in the photo above.) She also believed that her mother tried so hard to instill in her good manners to compensate for her lack of beauty. A serious, shy, insecure girl, her mother called her “granny” because she said Eleanor was “old fashioned.” Her father on the other hand, was the light of her life. Unfortunately, he was away a good bit, either on alcoholic binges or in a sanitarium. This wasn’t the only grief in her life. Her mother died when Eleanor was eight and her father died when she was ten. She and her brother Hall went to live with their grandmother Hall and her aunts who were still at home. They were a family of society belles and Eleanor didn’t fit in well there either.

Elliot Roosevelt with Eleanor and her two brothers Hall and Elliot Jr. Elliot Jr. died in 1893.

Eleanor’s life began to change at age 15 when she went abroad to the Allenswood Academy run by Marie Souvestre, a noted feminist who taught her charges to think independently. Allenswood was a finishing school and Eleanor gained confidence, but I think this is also where she began to learn lessons that would serve her later in life about her own worth and ability. When she returned she “came out” with all the society parties that coming out entailed, and soon met Franklin. He was charismatic and outgoing, the life of the party in a way similar to her father.

Franklin brought with him, however, a mother with very fixed ideas about things. Sara Delano Roosevelt was a second wife, born the same year as Franklin’s older half brother. When Franklin’s father died, he was all Sara had left and she invested all her energies in him. She was not in favor of the marriage, but Franklin had his way and he and Eleanor married when she was 20 and he 23. But to give you a taste of how it would be, while they were in Europe on their honeymoon, Sara bought them a house. It was a townhouse in New York City and might not have been so bad except that she owned the one next to it and there were sliding doors on every floor connecting the two.

Eleanor and Sara 1908

The relationship between Sara and Eleanor is complicated and debated among historians. Eleanor had six children between 1906 and 1916, and had little experience with children or running a household so in many ways Sara was a tremendous help to Eleanor, but it must have reinforced her feelings of inadequacy.

There are several things that helped Eleanor begin her transformation. In 1910, Franklin was elected to the New York State Senate. This took them to Albany away from Sara, and exposed Eleanor to more of the political life that she would later be so involved in. The second thing, in 1918, Eleanor discovered letters written to Franklin by Lucy Mercer, her personal secretary, exposing an ongoing affair between Lucy and Franklin. Although Eleanor had probably never had the emotionally intimate relationship she wanted with Franklin, this was devastating. She gave him the choice of a divorce, or ending the affair for good. He chose to stay in the marriage, but what intimacy they had in their marriage was gone.

Women so often just do what has to be done. They find the strength within themselves to go on. Eleanor did this after the affair and I’m sure there were many reasons for it – for the sake of the children, Franklin’s career, etc. But what I think inspires me the most is that she didn’t just carry on the status quo. When Franklin was stricken with polio in 1921 (although there is doubt now that it was polio), Eleanor rose to the occasion in a way that was truly above and beyond the call of duty. As might be expected she stood by him as he dealt with the disease both in the initial stages and over the years as he searched for a cure. But more than that, she worked tirelessly to keep his name in front of the public. Louis Howe, the man that had coached Franklin in the ways of politics, took on Eleanor and together they refused to let him be forgotten. She began to speak publicly and get involved in Democratic women’s organizations. She began to write and network. And it worked. Although Franklin remained marginally involved, he didn’t fully enter politics again until he was elected Governor of New York in 1929. And the rest as they say, is history.

In doing this work for Franklin, Eleanor came into her own. From this point on she would be involved in many ways, both as a helper to Franklin and in the name of causes which had become important to her over the years. She may have been a late bloomer, but she truly became a force to be reckoned with.

Many of you may know more about Eleanor than I do, or have a different perspective on her life. Please comment. I would love to hear your thoughts on this remarkable woman.

Resources
Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship Based on Eleanor Roosevelt’s Private Papers by Joseph P. Lash
TR: The Last Romantic by H. W. Brands
Presidential Wives: An Anecdotal History by Paul F. Boller Jr.

Molly Kool – First Certified North American Female Sea Captain

Myrtle ‘Molly’ Kool (February 23, 1916 – February 25, 2009), a Canadian and North America’s First Certified Female Sea Captain.

Molly’s boat collided with another ship in the dense fog. Falling overboard, she grabbed a piece of floating timber to keep afloat. Passengers from the boat began to throw life preservers at her. Her response? “Stop throwing useless things at me, send a boat!” This is a story often told about Molly Kool to demonstrate her courage and presence of mind. Sometimes described as “frivolous and pretty” on land, she earned the respect of her crew, doing any and every job necessary from repairing engines to sewing canvas and splicing rope

Myrtle Kool, known as Molly, was the second of five children born to Myrtle Anderson and Paul Kool, at Alma, New Brunswick in 1916. Paul Kool was a Dutch sea captain who sailed his scow the Jean K between ships anchored at sea and the shore from Alma on Fundy Bay as far south as Boston. Although, his boat was named after his oldest daughter, Molly was the one who took to the sea spending as much time on board with her father as she could.

Wanting to make her career on the sea, she applied to the Merchant Marine school in St. John, New Brunswick. She was turned down, but persevered and in 1937 earned a mate’s certificate. Two years later in 1939, she earned a Coastal Master’s Certificate at the Merchant Marine Institute in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, making her the first woman in North America to become a certified Captain. (They had to amend the Canadian Shipping Act to include the word “she.”) Molly was also only the second woman in the world to achieve this standing, the first being Anna Shchetinina of the Soviet Union just a few years earlier.

Molly’s father turned the Jean K over to her and for five years she sailed some of the roughest seas in the world. In addition to the rough tides at Fundy Bay, she navigated through drift ice, snow, fog, and gale force winds to carry her cargo, most often paper and pulp products.

In 1944, while waiting on repairs after a gas explosion, Molly married Ray Blaisdell and decided to retire from the sea. She and Blaisdell lived in Maine for the next 20 years before Blaisdell’s death, where she sold Singer sewing machines and sailed for pleasure rather than profit. At some point in the 1960s, she married John Carney.

Molly Kool died of pneumonia on February 25, 2009 at the age of 93. She lived a long life, but in 2003 when the “Molly Kool”, named in her honor, was launched she was still able to give the captain instructions on sailing the boat. A monument to her accomplishments has been erected near the wharf at Alma.

Can you think of other female “firsts.” Let us know.

A Few Great Resources About Women’s History

I’ve recently “Liked” some new Facebook pages related to History, some specifically about Women’s History, and through these have discovered some wonderful resources that I want to highlight.

Is Mise – on Facebook

Is Mise is a Facebook page “By, For, and About Women” managed by Tracy Livingston a cultural anthropologist. She has wonderful posts and I highly recommend “liking” her page if you are on Facebook.

Century of Action: Women Get the Vote

One of the websites I found through Is Mise is the “Century of Action: Women Get the Vote“, the website of the Oregon Women’s History Consortium.

When the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920, many women had been voting for quite a while. Fifteen states had given women full suffrage and others had received the right to vote in various types of elections. One hundred years ago, in 1912, the women of Oregon won the right to vote. In honor of this event, the Oregon Women’s History Consortium has been formed to “lead the centennial celebration of woman suffrage and to promote women’s history beyond 2012.” At their website you can find information about the long fight in Oregon, the women who spear-headed that fight, documents, and current news and events.

Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II

During WWII, women did countless jobs to free men to fight. We often think about Rosy the Riveter and women who went into the workforce for the first time, but women also went into the military for the first time in jobs other than nursing. Homefront Heroines: The WAVES of World War II is a documentary film about the women who volunteered for service in the Navy during the war. At the website and blog for the film, you can find wonderful exhibits, pictures, and stories of these women as well as a trailer for the movie to be released in August 2012. They have both a Facebook page and a website.

The Zinn Education Project

If you’ve never read Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States, it is well worth the time. In the book, Zinn looks at our history from a different perspective than the typical history book and tells the stories of people whose voices are often not heard. The Zinn Education Project is primarily targeted toward using Zinn’s book in the classroom, but it’s website contains many resources which will be of interest to anyone interested in United States history. You can explore by theme or time period and narrow the target audience to a specific age group. This site is not limited to women’s history, but we are certainly represented there. They also have a Facebook page.

National Women’s History Museum

I’ve mentioned the National Women’s History Museum before, but I wanted to remind you of it. If you are on Facebook, be sure to “Like” their page. They frequently have posts of the “Today in History” type specifically related to women.

Just a little nugget from this week – During the Revolutionary War, Thursday April 26, 1777 was the day that Sybil Ludington rode all night on horseback to warn local troops that the British were attacking. Her father was a colonel in the militia and she was barely sixteen, but she rode all night covering roughly 40 miles. She accomplished her mission and the men gathered together the next morning to fight. Paul Revere covered less distance and was memorialized in a poem, but Sybil was just a girl helping out her dad.

Actually, there are a couple of statues of Sybil and she has her own stamp, but I had never heard of her. There are so many things we weren’t taught in school!

Mary McLeod Bethune – “Genius Knows No Racial Barriers”

In 1904, a young woman with faith in God and a passion for education opened a school in Daytona Florida with $1.50 and five young African-American girls. Over the next fourteen years, the school would add a four-story building containing dormitories for students and teachers, a two-story addition containing kitchen and domestic science facilities, a twelve acre farm for growing vegetables, raising cows and practical training for the girls, another six acre tract and an auditorium. The woman with the drive and passion to do this was Mary McLeod Bethune and this was only the beginning of her amazing and productive life.

Mary McLeod was born in 1875 to Samuel and Patsy McLeod on a small cotton and rice farm in South Carolina. Her parents were former slaves and she was one in a very large family. She worked on the farm as a young child, but was always ambitious. Eventually, she was able to go to a small mission school in Mayesville, SC. Then with scholarship assistance she continued her education at Scotia Seminary in Concord, NC and Moody Bible College in Chicago.

Mary’s goal was to be a missionary to Africa, but she was told that black missionaries weren’t needed, so she returned to teach school in South Carolina. In 1898, she married Albertus Bethune. They had one son, Albert. She worked as a teacher and in social work until in 1899 the family relocated to Palatka Florida where Mary taught in a mission school. Mary felt strongly that an important way to improve the lives of African-Americans was to educate the girls. She was inspired by both Emma Jane Wilson the teacher in the mission school where she was educated and by Lucy Craft Laney who founded the Haines Normal and Industrial Institute in Augusta Georgia. Bethune spent a year teaching at the Haines Institute and was very impressed with Laney’s educational philosophy.

The Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona was founded in 1904 when Mary rented a small house for $11 a month. With five girls as students, her son, and the help of local parents and churches she began the hard work of creating a school that would eventually become the Bethune-Cookman University in 2007.  In addition to academic classes, the girls were given a rigorous Christian foundation and practical skills such as dressmaking, millinery, and cooking.

Daytona Normal School in 1919

Bethune served as president of the school until 1942, but her time was increasingly taken up with fund raising. In spite of this, she was also involved in other activities that raised awareness and improved the lives of African-Americans, specifically women and children. She served as the Florida president and national president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW.) She attended the Child Welfare Conference called by President Calvin Coolidge in 1928 and was appointed to the White House Conference on Child Health by President Herbert Hoover in 1930. In 1935, Mary brought together 28 agencies to form the National Council of Negro Women. The NCNW sponsored the White House Conference on Negro Women and Children in 1938.

Through these organizations, Mrs. Bethune was instrumental in getting African-American women into officer positions in the Women’s Army Corps during WWII as well as ensuring that black colleges participated in pilot training programs. She lobbied the National Youth Administration to include black youth in their programs. During this time she became close friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. Because of this she had easy access to the White House and became a member of the “Black Cabinet” a group of well respected African-Americans that met informally, but had influence over issues affecting all African-Americans. Among her many honors was being the only African-American woman present at the founding of the United Nations in 1945. She represented the NAACP with W. E. B. Dubois and Walter White.

She believed that education about black people was important not only to promote pride in black children, but to promote understanding among all races.

“Not only the Negro child but children of all races should read and know of the achievements, accomplishments and deeds of the Negro. World peace and brotherhood are based on a common understanding of the contributions and cultures of all races and creeds.”

It seems that she made significant progress toward her goals When Mary McLeod died in 1955, she was remembered in many newspapers across the country for her achievements. Three quotes that I found in Wikipedia sum this up nicely:

She was, “one of the most potent factors in the growth of interracial goodwill in America.”  The New York Times

“So great were her dynamism and force that it was almost impossible to resist her… Not only her own people, but all America has been enriched and ennobled by her courageous, ebullient spirit.”  The Washington Post

“To some she seemed unreal, something that could not be… What right had she to greatness?… The lesson of Mrs. Bethune’s life is that genius knows no racial barriers.”  Daytona Beach Evening News

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, April 6, 1949

Resources
Women of Achievement by Benjamin Brawley (in the public domain)
Mary McLeod Bethune by Emma Gelders Sterne (in the public domain)
These books can be found at the Internet Archives.

Madame Curie – Part 2

Marie and Pierre Curie were both people who preferred to stay out of the limelight. As their fame grew, Marie probably adjusted to the attention better than Pierre did, but doing the work of science was foremost for both of them. Pierre still had a low level position in one of the less prestigious schools in Paris even though he had friends who worked to try to get him a position at the Sorbonne. Marie had finished her work on magnetism and began to look around for a topic for her doctoral thesis. They took a small apartment, Pierre took on more tutoring work and Marie got her teaching certification. Their income was small, but they could make it.

During this time, there was a series of discoveries which would set the stage for the work which would bring Marie Curie her fame. Conrad Röntgen discovered X-rays. The exact nature of this radiating energy was unknown, but a connection was hypothesized between X-rays and phosphorescence. Henri Becquerel, with an interest in phosphorescence, experimented to determine whether or not other minerals known to be florescent produced X-rays. After testing many different minerals, the only one which exhibited a similar type of radiating energy was uranium.

The discovery of X-rays created quite a stir, particularly with its implications for medicine, so of course the Curie’s followed the related research. Marie thought that uranium and this radiating energy were of interest and decided to investigate further. By examining ore samples containing uranium, she determined that the amount of radiation was directly related to the amount of uranium in the sample. It wasn’t affected by other factors such as temperature or other elements contained in the sample. This led her to hypothesize that the radiation was a characteristic of the atom itself.

One of the minerals that she investigated was pitchblende. Here she measured much higher levels of radiation than could be accounted for by uranium. She concluded that there must be additional elements within pitchblende that also exhibited this property of radiating energy and began the long and tedious process of isolating and identifying them. She coined the term radioactivity and established the science that would be used to analyze it.

It is important to remember that other scientists were actively involved in similar investigations. Becquerel had in fact discovered, and maybe more importantly, published the concept of radioactivity first. In Marie’s experiments she discovered that the element thorium was radioactive, but Gerhard Schmidt in Germany had discovered the same thing and published it earlier. Marie knew of the importance of announcing and publishing her work in a timely fashion. Since, neither she nor Pierre were members of the French Academy of Science, her former professor Gabriel Lippman presented her first paper on the subject for her in 1898.

It took about four years for Marie to complete her work. She isolated two radioactive elements in pitchblende: polonium and radium. At some point, Pierre put his work aside and began to work with her, as did other scientists and students. Much of the work, especially at the beginning, required back breaking effort. As it turns out, they had to process from 6- 7 tons of pitchblende to get a miniscule amount of radium. Radium is the element that caught the imagination of the world and would be used in things from paint on watch dials to “health” drinks, much to the detriment of those that came in close contact with it.

During this period of time, Marie gave birth to their first daughter, Irene, in 1897. It was, of course, expected that a woman would take care of everything related to the home. When Marie and Pierre were married, their home and lives were simple. It is said that they only had two chairs at their table to discourage visitors from staying. In the evening, they would companionably read physics together. They had a shared obsession with science that overshadowed everything else. When Irene was born this changed dramatically.

Marie went back to her work, but would have to rush home to nurse Irene. She didn’t have enough milk and had to hire a wet nurse. With two nurses to care for the baby, their meager income was stretched even more. With the hard physical work she was doing, the increased expenses, and the feeling of failure at not being able to nurse her baby, the stress took its toll on Marie’s health. Pierre’s father came to the rescue. Dr. Eugene Curie was the physician who had delivered Irene. During the same month, his wife, Pierre’s mother died of breast cancer. So, at the beginning of 1898, Dr. Curie moved in with Marie and Pierre to care for Irene.

Dr. Curie was a godsend. He was a warm, expressive man who Irene and later Eve would remember fondly. He is probably responsible for meeting most of their emotional needs. There is no doubt that Marie loved her children, but she and Pierre were in many ways lost in their scientific world. And after Pierre died in 1906, Marie would close herself off emotionally, preventing them from even mentioning Pierre’s name in her presence.

Pierre had been denied the acclaim in France that he had received internationally, in part due to his unconventional background, and Marie faced these kinds of prejudices as well because she was a woman. By 1902, she had isolated enough radium to determine its place on the periodic table and to satisfy the chemists that it was indeed a new element. She wrote her thesis and received her doctorate and in 1903, Marie, Pierre, and Henri Becquerel were nominated for and received the Nobel Prize in physics.

It wasn’t quite that simple though. The Nobel Prizes were first given beginning in 1901. That first year, and again in 1902, Charles Bouchard nominated all three of them. Other people were chosen both years. Then in 1903 four influential scientists, including Gabriel Lippman, Marie’s former professor whom she considered a friend, nominated Henri Becquerel and Pierre Curie for the physics prize with no mention of Marie. Magnus Gustaf Mittag-Leffler a respected Swedish mathematician who was on the nominating committee told Pierre of the nomination. Pierre wrote him that he would not accept the prize unless Marie was included. He approached the committee with this letter, and with the support of Charles Bouchard, the nomination was changed to include Marie.

(Mittag Leffler believed that women were under appreciated in the sciences. He was also the person responsible for raising the private funds to support the appointment of Sonya Kovalevsky to a position of full professor in mathematics at his university in Sweden. She was the first woman to become a professor of mathematics and Marie Curie the first woman to become a Nobel Prize winner. Thank you Professor Leffler!)

Life changed after the Nobel Prize. Although, the Curie’s had not patented their process for extracting radium, they did receive some income from it due to its immense popularity, but probably not enough to make up for the time they had to spend dealing with other people. They had made this choice on principle believing that it was more important to facilitate the work of science than to profit from it.

In 1904 Pierre was finally offered a chair at the Sorbonne, the same year a second daughter, Eve, was born. And in 1905, he was offered membership in the French Academy of Science. The latter came with lab facilities and three posts, one of which he gave to Marie. Then tragedy struck in 1906, when Pierre fell in the street and was struck in the head and died.

Pierre’s death changed Marie. Joy and light seemed to be taken from her. Dr. Curie sustained his granddaughters and taught them about their father, because Marie refused to discuss him after his death. This would be especially important for Eve since she was less than two years old when he died. Marie would be actively involved in their lives, planning their education and being with them, but it was never the same.

Life is complicated and it is difficult if not impossible to determine cause and effect in many areas of our lives. But Pierre Curie understood his wife in a way that I’m not sure anyone else did. Her drive to study science was probably motivated by several things, interest and ability of course, but possibly a need to do the things that had been denied her father, as well as a need to retreat from every day life when depression threatened to overwhelm her.

Curie in a World War I mobile x-ray vehicle

It’s also impossible to give an accurate picture of a complicated person in 3000 words or less. Marie went on to become a professor at the Sorbonne in 1908 and win the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of radium, an award that was almost derailed because of an affair with Paul Langevin. (This, in itself, is a study of how women were treated differently even in the “rational” world of science. The same standard certainly wasn’t applied to Langevin or to Einstein for that matter.) She oversaw the building of The Curie Institute, developed and implemented mobile X-ray machines during World War I, and even got involved in a little intrigue to prevent the Germans from getting their hands on radium during the war.

Marie continued to teach young scientists, although she would do no more original work of the caliber she did in her early life. Some (at least at the time) would try to claim this as evidence that Pierre was the real scientist of the two, but I don’t think this is the case. Many scientists do their best work at an early age. I think they were both exceptional scientists with individual accomplishments and an understanding of each other that brought out the best of each.

Note: The next woman to win a Nobel Prize would be Marie and Pierre’s daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie with her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie in 1935, the year after Marie’s death.

Read about Marie’s early life.

Resources
Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie by Barbara Goldsmith
Six Great Scientists by J. G. Crowther

Madame Curie – Part I

One of the most famous pictures of Marie Curie is the photograph taken at the 1911 Solvay Conference. In it she is the only woman surrounded by some of the most well known scientists and mathematicians of her day: Perrin, Poincare, Einstein, Rutherford, and Langevin to name a few. It is easy to assume that genius is always recognized whether it is in a man or a woman, but Marie Curie’s fame was hard won. She also didn’t get there due exclusively to her own efforts, but in part due to the fact that there were those in her field who weren’t willing to let her be denied simply because she was a woman. There were scientists who worked against her, but also those who defended her, her discoveries, and her genius.

1911 Sovay Conference, Marie Curie is second from the left and the only woman
1911 Sovay Conference, Marie Curie is second from the right seated and the only woman (source)

Marya Salomee Sklodowska, nicknamed Manya, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. Her parents, Wladyslaw Sklodowski and Bronislava Boguski were intelligent members of the lower aristocracy. Their families no longer had wealth but they valued education and had a fierce loyalty to their native Poland. From the time of Manya’s birth until after World War I, the area of Poland where she was born and grew up was occupied by Russia. After several uprisings, the Russian government worked to suppress Polish nationalism.

Because of the suppression of the Polish people, although educated in St. Petersburg, Wladyslaw was a physicist who was not allowed to perform experiments or practice his science. He was reduced to taking low paying teaching positions in schools administered by Russians. Bronislava worked hard to get an education and worked her way up to becoming headmistress of the Freta Street School, a private school for girls in Warsaw. During this time, women were not expected to work outside their homes and were not eligible for higher education.

When Wladyslaw and Bronislava married in 1860, they moved into the apartment provided for Bronislava as the headmistress of the Freta Street School. Five children followed in six years: Zofia in 1862, Jozef in 1863, Bronislava (Bronya) in 1865, Helena in 1866, and Manya in 1867. The year Manya was born Wladyslaw received a position as assistant director of a Russian school on the western side of Warsaw which came with an apartment. The family moved and for a while Bronislava tried to continue in her position as headmistress. Eventually, the strain of caring for her family combined with travel to the Freta school and maintaining her job there took its toll and Bronislava resigned her position.

It seems that their family life was happy for a time. Both parents valued education and loved their children. At first Bronislava educated the older children at home, but her health began to decline. In 1871, when Manya was four, her mother began to show the classic symptoms of tuberculosis. Over the following years, she would go away several times for a “cure” taking Zofia with her as a nurse. When Manya was 10 her sister Zofia died from typhus. Two years later her mother succumbed to tuberculosis. These deaths hit Manya very hard. For most of her life she would suffer from periodic bouts of severe depression. At times she was able to hide it, retreating into a book, her studies, or later her work, but other times she would take to her bed refusing to eat or see anyone.

Marie Curie at 16 years old (source)
Marie Curie at 16 years old (source)

Manya continued her studies, graduating first in her class in 1883. This continued perseverance in the face of great loss took its toll. After she graduated she withdrew into despair. As a remedy, she was sent to spend the next year with relatives living in the country. She would later describe this year as one of the happiest of her life. Manya came back to Warsaw determined to work to help her family. She made a deal with her sister Bronya. She would work to help Bronya get her medical degree, then Bronya would in turn help her. To do this she took a series of jobs as a governess. One of these jobs was for the Żorawski family. During this time she fell in love with their son Kazimierz Żorawski. The feeling was mutual and they wanted to marry, but his parents were adamantly opposed to their son marrying a penniless governess.

In 1890, Bronya, who had finished her medical training and married another doctor, wrote to her sister to come to Paris. Manya still had hope that Kazimierz would be able to go against his parents and marry her. She decided not to go to Paris and began her scientific training in what was called the “Floating University.” The Floating University, or Flying University, was an underground, illegal, series of courses taught in private homes. The goal was to keep alive the Polish culture under the repressive rule of the Russians. This also provided a means for girls to get a higher education.

Eventually, Manya received a letter from Kazimierz which ended any thoughts of marriage in Manya’s mind and she decided to accept Bronya’s offer and go to Paris. In the fall of 1891, she arrived in Paris and taking the French form of her name, Marie, she entered the Sorbonne to study physics and mathematics. Initially staying with her sister, Marie found the constant activity in the home distracting and eventually rented a small garret room where she would spend her evenings studying, often without heat and neglecting her own health. She worked hard and received her degree in physics in 1893, and her degree in mathematics in 1894.

Sklodowski Family: Wladyslaw Skłodowski and his daughters Maria, Bronisława and Helena c. 1890 (source)

One of Marie’s professors, Gabriel Lippman, was able to get a small research opportunity for her to study magnetism. While attending the Floating University, Marie had begun work investigating magnetism in a laboratory run by a cousin, so it was an area of interest to her, but she had little laboratory space and poor equipment. Friends suggested that she consult a young scientist named Pierre Curie. Pierre had also done work in the area of magnetism which Marie was familiar with, but more importantly he and his brother Jacques had invented several pieces of equipment that would make Marie’s work much easier.

Pierre was a quiet man who had an unconventional upbringing. As a child he struggled learning some basic things such as reading and writing, but his genius in mathematics was recognized early. For this reason, his parents chose to educate him at home. Whether because of temperament or because of his early lack of experience with others outside the home, Pierre would always shy away from the public spotlight. This affected his ability to promote himself and achieve recognition in the form of lucrative positions in universities.

Before Marie met Pierre, he and Jacques had discovered piezoelectricity, a concept that explained the relationship between volume changes in crystal quartz and electricity. This discovery would become the foundation of many inventions in the future, such as sonar, ultrasound, and quartz wristwatches. It also brought Pierre and Jacques international acclaim in the scientific community. In spite of this, when Marie met Pierre, he was teaching at an industrial school for engineers with a small salary. It certainly wasn’t a position commensurate with his abilities or fame.

Pierre Curie c. 1906 (source)
Pierre Curie c. 1906 (source)

In many ways they were made for each other. Pierre never thought he would meet a woman who didn’t distract him from his science. Marie also had a need to be free from distraction, and in Pierre, she had met a man who not only understood her, but wasn’t threatened in any way by her genius. It took some persuading along with help from Marie’s sister Bronya and Pierre’s mother, but Marie finally agreed to marry Pierre in 1895. Although she needed persuading, they were very much in love, and after the wedding they settled down to work together.

Next Post – The discovery that made Madame Curie famous and how she and Pierre were able to balance science with family life.

Resources:
Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie by Barbara Goldsmith
Six Great Scientists by J. G. Crowther