Radiant Women

Question: Marie and Irène Curie are the only mother/daughter pair to win the Nobel prize—but how many total Nobels were awarded to the Curies?

Answer: 5

More than 150 years after her birth, Marie Curie remains a towering figure in the world of science. Her significant achievements took place at a time when little attention was paid to education for women, and she paved the way for other women in science with the sheer power of her mind. She has the unique distinction of being the first woman to win a Nobel prize—and the first person to win a Nobel prize in two different scientific fields. But that’s just scratching the surface of the accomplishments of this humble Polish immigrant and her equally brilliant family.

It’s actually not all that rare for members of the same family to win a Nobel prize—it’s been done across almost every Nobel category. Having said that, no family comes close to matching the achievements—or number of Nobel prizes—of the Curies. What makes them so special?

Humble beginnings ...

The youngest of five children, “Maria Sklodowska” was born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. Graduating at the top of her class in high school, Maria was passionate about science and wished to continue her studies, but higher education was unavailable to women at the time. After her mother died and her father could no longer support the family, Maria worked as a governess and tutor for several years. Maria’s sister had moved to Paris to study medicine, and in 1891, when Maria was 24, she followed her to Paris to study chemistry, mathematics, and physics at the Sorbonne. In spite of having to learn French, Maria—now Marie—became the top student in her master’s physics degree course. After receiving funding to study magnetism in steel, she completed her master’s degree in chemistry in 1894. Missing her homeland, though, she returned to Poland hoping to teach at a university. But things hadn’t changed—and these positions were not available for women.

So, in 1894, 27-year-old Marie decided to return to Paris to begin a Ph.D. degree in physics. She met a 35-year-old physicist studying crystals and magnetism named Pierre Curie and took a job in his lab. The next year they married.

While Pierre was several years Marie’s senior—and had only just completed his own Ph.D. in physics—he was already a highly respected scientist and professor. But Marie was the one who steered their work into the study of radiation (not the other way around). For her doctoral thesis, Marie had been building on the works of others who had recently discovered X-rays. She had theorized that the mysterious penetrating rays were a property of the element’s atoms. Pierre thought she was on to something, and they teamed up to measure the strength of the rays by studying an ore containing uranium. Marie had noticed that the ore was emitting much more radiation than one would expect from the element alone. While investigating the source of the rays, they discovered two new radioactive elements—radium and polonium (radium is just Latin for “ray,” but Marie chose the name polonium to honor her homeland, Poland).

Discovering two new elements that would soon take their place in the periodic chart of elements was a big deal. But the far bigger deal was the properties of these two elements. There wasn’t even a word to describe the phenomenon they were observing, so they came up with one—radioactivity. They found that polonium was 300 times more radioactive than uranium, and radium was 3 million times more radioactive than uranium. Not only that, but radium’s compounds are luminous and it produces heat continuously without any chemical reaction taking place, and is always hotter than its surroundings (which is all pretty weird when you think about it).

This all happened in 1898. At the time of these groundbreaking discoveries, the Curies had a one-year-old daughter, Irene (who, 37 years later, would make groundbreaking discoveries of her own). When Marie Curie was awarded her Ph.D. by the Sorbonne in 1903, her examiners remarked that she had made the greatest contribution to science ever found in a Ph.D. thesis. Six months later, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, sharing the prize with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, the first to observe radioactivity.

Continuing her research, in 1910 Marie would become the first person to isolate pure radium metal. This major breakthrough in the study of radioactivity earned her a second Nobel prize in 1911, this time in chemistry. Before we tell you why she was the sole recipient of the Nobel prize this time—and how her life changed in 1906—take a look at some of these “firsts”:

Marie Curie was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in France. She was the first female professor at the Sorbonne. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. She was the first person, male or female, to win more than one Nobel Prize (and to this day, the only woman to win more than once). And she was the first person to win a Nobel in more than one scientific field—physics and chemistry.

If there were Nobels for parenting, let’s nominate Marie

Marie Curie is justifiably celebrated for her pioneering work on radioactivity, but she was more than just an eminent scientist. She was also a remarkable mother. Marie and Pierre Curie, who were married in 1895, had two daughters. Irène, the oldest, was born two years after their marriage, and Eve was born seven years later. But shortly after Eve’s birth, Pierre was struck down and killed by a horse-drawn carriage hurtling down a wet, slippery street.

Suddenly, Marie had to raise two young daughters without a father.

Unhappy with the schooling in Paris at the time, Marie decided to homeschool the girls. But not your usual homeschooling. She did her part, teaching them physical sciences, but wanting them to receive the best all-around education possible, she joined a group of distinguished scholars that took turns teaching lessons in their own areas of expertise. As busy as she was with her own career, Marie also spent as much time as possible with the girls, took them hiking, and made sure they participated in lots of physical activities.

And her efforts paid off. During World War I, the 17-year-old Irène assisted her mother bringing X-rays to the battlefront to treat wounded soldiers. And she worked directly alongside Marie running mobile X-ray units in field hospitals and in specially equipped vehicles, which the soldiers referred to as “petites Curies.” Even at such a young age, Marie was so confident in her daughter's knowledge and abilities that she had Irène teach courses in radiation to soldiers and nurses.

Irène returned to school after the war, completing her graduate studies while working with her mother at the Radium Institute, now called the Curie Institute. While there, Irène met engineer Frédéric Joliot, who was a trainee in Marie's lab. Irène and Frédéric would marry in 1926. After making a bombshell discovery of a way to artificially create radioactive atoms in 1934, the couple shared the Nobel prize in chemistry the following year.

All About Ève

What about Marie’s youngest daughter? Born seven years apart, Ève and her older sister Irène couldn’t have been more different. While Irène was quiet and studious, Ève was a social butterfly—but every bit as talented. Rather than following her parents and sister in the sciences, however, Ève found success as a concert pianist, journalist, author, and humanitarian. Madame Curie, a biography of her mother that she wrote after Marie died in 1934, became a huge bestseller and earned Ève wide literary acclaim. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her work as a foreign correspondent during World War II, while she traveled tens of thousands of miles to wartime fronts that included Iran, Iraq, India, China, Burma, and North Africa. Greeted as a celebrity when she arrived in the United States for a book tour in 1940, her picture graced the cover of Time magazine. She also gave many lectures during her tour and dined with notable figures like Eleanor Roosevelt.

After the war, Ève’s career took on a more humanitarian focus. She was appointed special adviser to the first secretary general of NATO in 1952. Two years later, she married an American diplomat, Henry Richardson Labouisse, who later became the executive director of UNICEF. Traveling to dozens of developing countries on behalf of UNICEF, Ève would become known as the “First Lady of UNICEF.” When UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Ève’s husband would accept the honor on the organization’s behalf. (If anyone’s counting, that’s five Nobel prizes in one family! No other family has even come close.)

It is difficult to know what day-to-day life was really like for Marie Curie and her two daughters, of course. By all accounts, she was relentlessly driven by her research but also totally devoted to raising her two girls. But no one could argue with the fact that she managed to raise two outstanding children whose affection was reciprocated their entire lives. They would both care for their dying mother as she grew increasingly ill from radiation exposure.

Both Marie and Irène would die prematurely due to prolonged exposure to radiation. Ève, however, who died in 2007 in NYC, lived to the ripe old age of 102.

Not very noble behavior by the Nobel committee

Chalk it up to unenlightened times, but not everyone felt Marie deserved to share the podium with her male colleagues. More likely, it was just male wounded pride, but members of the French Academy of Sciences only nominated Pierre and Henri Becquerel for the Nobel prize in physics in 1903—not Marie. It was only after Pierre persuaded some of the committee members that she deserved to share the honor that she was added. Even so, at the awards ceremony, the president of the Swedish Academy downplayed her contributions, choosing to make his opinion known by adding the following quote from the Bible to his speech: “It is not good that man should be alone I will make a helper suitable for him.” I think we can all agree that this guy was a real jerk!

Even eight years later, when Marie was the sole recipient of the Nobel prize in chemistry, there were some who felt she didn’t deserve it for “essentially the same work.” Oh well, haters gonna hate ...

"Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood."

—Marie Curie

A few more fascinating facts about the Curies

• Mom, what’s going on?!—When Marie and her two daughters crossed the Atlantic to visit America in 1921, it was like the Beatles had arrived. Marie was mobbed by fans, toasted at the Waldorf Astoria and Carnegie Hall, given honorary degrees, and brought to the White House by President Warren G. Harding. Throngs of reporters, flashing cameras, and autograph seekers greeted them everywhere they went. Marie’s two daughters were thunderstruck. Until that time, they had no idea that their mother was famous.
• The Curies may not be done yet—One has to wonder if the distinguished scientific tradition of the Curie family still could live on. Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie’s daughter, Hélène Langevin-Joliot, is currently a well-respected nuclear physicist in France. Hélène's husband, Michael Langevin, is also a nuclear physicist. As if that’s not enough, their son is an astrophysicist.
• I’m ready for my close-up—Ève Curie’s biography of her famous mother was adapted for the big screen as the aptly titled Madame Curie. The 1943 film starring Greer Garson as Marie and Walter Pidgeon as Pierre was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Outstanding Motion Picture (now called Best Picture).
• Tempting, but it wouldn’t be right—After discovering radium in 1898, Marie and Pierre chose not to pursue a patent and profit from its production—despite the fact that they barely had enough money to procure the uranium slag necessary to extract the element themselves. Instead, they decided to generously share the process with fellow researchers and openly distributed the secret of its production with interested industrial parties.
• Take me to the front—Marie Curie helped to equip and operate more than twenty specially equipped ambulances and hundreds of field hospitals to assist surgeons in locating and removing shrapnel and bullets from wounded soldiers. She even drove one of the ambulances herself, ignoring the dangers of venturing too close to the fighting on the front lines.
• Thanks, but no thanks—By the end of World War I, it was estimated that Curie’s X-ray equipment, as well as radon gas syringes she had designed to sterilize wounds, may have saved the lives of a million soldiers. When the French government tried to award her the country’s most distinguished honor, la Légion d'honneur after the war, Marie declined.
• You could even say it glows—Little was understood about the dangers of radioactive elements at the time of the Curies’ pioneering research. Pierre liked to keep a sample in his pocket so he could demonstrate its glowing and heating properties to people. He once strapped a vial of radium to his bare arm for ten hours to study the curious way it painlessly burned his skin. Marie kept a sample next to her bed at home to use as a nightlight!
• It’s good to have smart friends—At the prestigious Solvay Conference in 1911, an invite-only gathering of the world’s leading scientists in the field of physics, Marie Curie was the only woman out of its 24 members. One member was so impressed by her, that he came to her defense later that year. Curie had just been awarded her second Nobel prize, but the nominating committee sought to discourage her from coming to Stockholm to accept the award, ostensibly because of a scandal involving a relationship but most feel it was driven by bias against her gender and immigrant roots. Sinking into a depression, she received a letter from her admirer at the Solvay Conference. "I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty,” it read, “and I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance." As for the frenzy of newspaper articles attacking her, the letter encouraged her “to simply not read that hogwash but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated." She recovered and went to Stockholm to accept the award. The letter writer was Albert Einstein.

Ask your Program Director about visiting the Curie Museum on your own in Paris during The Seine: Paris & the Heart of Normandy.