Speaker 1: This was one of my discovery. She was actually asked
Speaker 1: by the Nobel Academy to not come to accept the
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize because it would embarrass the king. Uh And
Speaker 1: she wrote back, I have always believed that my the
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize was being given from my scientific work, and
Speaker 1: my private life had nothing to do with it. And
Speaker 1: she went and accepted the Nobel Prize. That was author
Speaker 1: Susan Quinn talking about Marie Curie, the first person ever
Speaker 1: to be honored with two Nobel Prizes, one for physics
Speaker 1: in h three and the second one for chemistry in
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven. I'm a land Ververe and this is Seneca's
Speaker 1: one women to hear. We are bringing you one hundred
Speaker 1: of the world's most inspiring and history making women you
Speaker 1: need to hear. Marie Cury is one of the most
Speaker 1: famous scientists in history. As has been noted, she discovered
Speaker 1: polonium and radium, champion the use of radiation in medicine,
Speaker 1: and fundamentally changed our understanding of radio activity. To get
Speaker 1: a picture of who Marie Cury really was, we talked
Speaker 1: to Susan Quinn, author of the award winning biography Marie Curie,
Speaker 1: A Life listen and learn why Marie Cury is one
Speaker 1: of Seneca's one women to hear. I'm here today with
Speaker 1: Susan Quinn, renowned author, and we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: about the great woman scientist, Marie Cury. Welcome, Susan, Thank
Speaker 1: you glad to be here. Well, you certainly had a
Speaker 1: worthy subject in your book, Marie Cury a life. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about her a little bit. How is she best
Speaker 1: remembered and what were her greatest contributions to science. I
Speaker 1: think she's best remembered as a courageous woman scientist at
Speaker 1: a time when that was a very difficult role to
Speaker 1: have in life, and surmounted great obstacles um in her life.
Speaker 1: I certainly think her greatest contribution to science was her
Speaker 1: discovery of radio activity. Uh. Her discoveries of the um
Speaker 1: of the elements, first polonium she named her first discovery
Speaker 1: of an element polonium after her native poland and second
Speaker 1: radium are often cited as her great discoveries. But what
Speaker 1: was even more important than those discoveries of elements and
Speaker 1: others later on was the underlying discovery that the elements
Speaker 1: are in a constant state of transformation and that radio
Speaker 1: activity is the reason and others went on then to
Speaker 1: really understand the nature structure of the atom and of
Speaker 1: the nucleus, and that came out of her discoveries which
Speaker 1: she shares really importantly with Pierre Cury, her husband and partner. So,
Speaker 1: in writing your award winning biography, what was some of
Speaker 1: the most inspiring and surprising things you learned about her?
Speaker 1: I came to this biography having read her daughter Eve
Speaker 1: Curie's biography Madame Curie, which I've since learned was read
Speaker 1: by many many young women. I was very inspired by
Speaker 1: that book. I actually quoted in my high school graduation speech. Uh.
Speaker 1: But having been out in the world and writing about women, UM,
Speaker 1: I began to suspect that that biography was really an
Speaker 1: only partial version of her of her life, and that
Speaker 1: turned out to be very much true. UM. My great
Speaker 1: discovery in the process of working on this book was
Speaker 1: that her life did not end when Pierre Cury was
Speaker 1: tragically killed. He was run over by a horse and
Speaker 1: cart in streets of Paris. I died in nineteen o six,
Speaker 1: not long only a few years after he and Mari
Speaker 1: Cury won the Nobel Prize or first Nobel Prize. She
Speaker 1: one another later. So he died in n six and
Speaker 1: um Eve Curious book portrays that as kind of the
Speaker 1: end of her romantic life, and in some ways that
Speaker 1: the film based on the book made it kind of
Speaker 1: the end of her life. But she's often portrayed as
Speaker 1: kind of a tragic grieving widow from then on. But
Speaker 1: she lived on for a lot of years until nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty four, and not long after Pierre Dodge, she formed
Speaker 1: a relationship with his best friend, Pierre Longeva um At
Speaker 1: Paul Langeva and Paul Lageman was an unhappily married man
Speaker 1: who was very very conflicted and and and shared a
Speaker 1: lot of that lury, and she was this grieving widow
Speaker 1: and they fell in love and they had a love
Speaker 1: affair which became a great scandal in France. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I discovered and the course of working
Speaker 1: on the book, was that Curie had written her book quickly,
Speaker 1: and a large part because she wanted to tell the
Speaker 1: story her way, and she wanted to not tell that story.
Speaker 1: But I discovered that story to be really evidence of
Speaker 1: Mari Cury's great courage. And it became this huge scandal
Speaker 1: because they were love letters discovered by your Paul launch
Speaker 1: Abouts wife and all the scandal sheets then attacked Marie
Speaker 1: Curie um as a foreign woman and a woman who
Speaker 1: was destroying a French household. All kinds of xenophobic attitudes
Speaker 1: and hostile attitudes towards her came out largely, I feel,
Speaker 1: and I argue in my book because she was this
Speaker 1: prominent and successful woman. Um. You know, it was not
Speaker 1: shocking at all for French men to have a love affair,
Speaker 1: but for her to have a love affair was shocking.
Speaker 1: And she won a second Nobel Prize in nineteen eleven
Speaker 1: and was that was exactly at the time of this
Speaker 1: great scandal, and she was actually this was one of
Speaker 1: my discovery. She was actually asked by the Swedish had
Speaker 1: by the Nobel Academy to not come to accept the
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize because it would embarrass the being uh and
Speaker 1: she wrote back, I have always believed that my the
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize was being given from my scientific work and
Speaker 1: my private life had nothing to do with it. And
Speaker 1: she went and accepted the Nobel Prize. Her sister came
Speaker 1: from Poland to support her. But it was a very
Speaker 1: difficult experience and traumatic experience for her, and she was
Speaker 1: unwell afterwards for a year. So that story became a
Speaker 1: very powerful story for me, and one that I felt
Speaker 1: was not scandalous or shocking, but but really evidence of
Speaker 1: her her courage and one of the numerous times she
Speaker 1: had to overcome hostility um of the established uh scientists
Speaker 1: in France towards a successful woman. She also applied to
Speaker 1: become a member of the French Academy a Science and
Speaker 1: was rejected. Uh. Never. This is a woman who, you know,
Speaker 1: want two Nobel Prizes. So she um very brave woman
Speaker 1: and tremendously strong, and she had this rich, full life
Speaker 1: and that was part of it. It's just fascinating to
Speaker 1: listen to you describe what she was up against. And
Speaker 1: it's not the first time, of course, so that we
Speaker 1: know about double standards that affect women so differently from men.
Speaker 1: So she's in the science field that in and of
Speaker 1: itself was not the most obvious place for a woman
Speaker 1: to get her start in a profession. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: she had to overcome many obstacles, including the obstacles later
Speaker 1: in life, But what did she have to overcome to
Speaker 1: get into science in the first place. I think a
Speaker 1: lot she was Polish. Grew up in Warsaw in a
Speaker 1: family of teachers. They were really uh. They came from
Speaker 1: the gentry, but they had they were impoverished because of
Speaker 1: the oppressive rule of Russians Are. So she grew up
Speaker 1: under uh, the rule of the czars, which forbid young
Speaker 1: people in school from speaking their native language Polish. They
Speaker 1: had to do that in secret. Um. She grew up
Speaker 1: in a passionately patriotic, a family that was very much
Speaker 1: they're very much Polish matriots, who recited Polish poetry at home,
Speaker 1: and I had this other public life that they had
Speaker 1: to maintain. So she learned about resisting authority early on.
Speaker 1: She and her best friend used to on their way
Speaker 1: to school every day, they used to pass a monument
Speaker 1: to the Russians are and they would spit on it.
Speaker 1: So she she had, you know, this kind of spirit.
Speaker 1: She was youngest in the family. They were all interested
Speaker 1: in science, and their father taught science, and or she
Speaker 1: would say that they would go to look at the
Speaker 1: sunset and he would explain to them what caused the sunset.
Speaker 1: You know, he's always teaching. So she had this background
Speaker 1: of intellectual family and curiosity, and she was a great
Speaker 1: student from early on, but they had no money. And secondly,
Speaker 1: there was no place to go to university in Poland
Speaker 1: for women. Um, so the only options were either to
Speaker 1: go to Russia or to go to Paris. And many
Speaker 1: many Poles went to Paris, but not that many women.
Speaker 1: But however, her sister Brown went to Paris and they
Speaker 1: they formed a pack. Brona went first, and while she
Speaker 1: was studying and she became a doctor, Marian stayed behind
Speaker 1: in Poland and worked as a governess under really difficult
Speaker 1: circumstances out in the country. Free Um isolated of and
Speaker 1: endured that for a number of years, saved her money,
Speaker 1: and then when Bronia had finished um, she supported Brillian.
Speaker 1: When Bronie was finished, Maria went off to Paris the study.
Speaker 1: So she already had to overcome being a foreigner and
Speaker 1: m learning science and math and everything that she learned
Speaker 1: in a second language, although she was a wonderful linguist um.
Speaker 1: And then of course she had to overcome uh the
Speaker 1: attitudes all around her about about women. And she she
Speaker 1: was one of the few, one of the few women
Speaker 1: at the Sorbun studying at the Sorbun, and she graduated
Speaker 1: at the top of her class and in physics one
Speaker 1: year and then the next year in mathematics, and that
Speaker 1: was around the time that she met Pierre. She had
Speaker 1: the good luck of meeting a very supportive and loving
Speaker 1: man who helped out with taking care of children and
Speaker 1: all the concerns of the household and his of course,
Speaker 1: his death was was just a devastating blow that she
Speaker 1: had to overcome also, um and there was a period
Speaker 1: when she wrote her journal that she didn't want to
Speaker 1: go on living because she was so the rest So
Speaker 1: there was a lot, a lot to overcome. And then
Speaker 1: I think one of the one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: she became very she became very involved in the effort
Speaker 1: during World War One. She really caught up the idea
Speaker 1: in fact of going to the front during World War
Speaker 1: One with X ray bobiles. They were essentially cars fitted
Speaker 1: out with X ray equipment, which was a very new,
Speaker 1: very new thing, and she and a team of people
Speaker 1: she trained went out in these X raymobiles and they
Speaker 1: were able then to X ray soldiers right close to
Speaker 1: the front and very quickly, and it saved many lives.
Speaker 1: And I think that, uh, the motivation for that was
Speaker 1: of course her patriotism her caring and she considered herself
Speaker 1: not just Polish but French. But I also think it
Speaker 1: was a way of sort of rehabilitating herself and her
Speaker 1: her reputation after this scandal of the laugen Affre, so
Speaker 1: once again overcoming, amazingly overcoming up great obstacles. And she
Speaker 1: had two children, two girls that she raised, both of
Speaker 1: whom grew up into amazing adults. And of course her
Speaker 1: daughter Garin became a scientist and herself won the Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize with her husband there Julio, and then the other
Speaker 1: daughter wrote the book Madame Curie. But she was also
Speaker 1: resist since she was a concert pianist, an amazing woman
Speaker 1: who lived well past so remarkable life in just a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Yeah. And the more the more that
Speaker 1: you share that with us, the more remarkable she is, obviously,
Speaker 1: from what I guess most of us know about her,
Speaker 1: which aren't these kinds of of details, clearly very resilient
Speaker 1: as well. When she met Pierre, had she intended at
Speaker 1: that point to go back and live in Poland or
Speaker 1: was she comfortable staying in France. Oh, she very much
Speaker 1: intended to go back to Poland, and she would, she
Speaker 1: writes to one of her friends, her Polish women friends,
Speaker 1: you know that she she feels terrible about not going back.
Speaker 1: Her her sister Brauna went back and found it this
Speaker 1: sanate at TV Sana territorium Um, and that that was
Speaker 1: really I think grew out of the fact that they
Speaker 1: lost their mother to tuberculosis and a sister when they
Speaker 1: were young. I had another loss in her life. So anyway,
Speaker 1: she was very committed to phil to the Polish cause
Speaker 1: and wanted to go back as a scientist to Poland.
Speaker 1: And then, uh, she said in this letter, but then
Speaker 1: I met him and we became attached to each other
Speaker 1: and we couldn't live without each other. So what was
Speaker 1: I to do? It feels like it was with a
Speaker 1: genuine conflict for her, But because of Pierre, she stayed
Speaker 1: in the front. Seneca has one hundred women to hear
Speaker 1: will be back after this short break. And then you
Speaker 1: had mentioned her resisting authority as a child, growing up
Speaker 1: in a very Polish nationalistic household at a time when
Speaker 1: Poland was part of the Russian Empire under disourist authority,
Speaker 1: she belonged to a revolutionary group as a student. What
Speaker 1: did that revolutionary group do? And perhaps what did that
Speaker 1: say about her, her own views, her own determination. It
Speaker 1: was came naturally in this family. I mean, her mother
Speaker 1: had been a teacher in a school, a private school
Speaker 1: that she attended, and they had two curricula. One was
Speaker 1: for the every day and then otherwise for the day
Speaker 1: the Russian inspectors came and on that day, you know,
Speaker 1: no Polish was spoken and no Polish history was dealt with,
Speaker 1: But on the other days it was. So it did
Speaker 1: come naturally. She as a because there was no higher
Speaker 1: education for women in Poland. She was part of something
Speaker 1: called a Flying University, which was an organization of women
Speaker 1: who met and studied together secretly. I'd say her her
Speaker 1: sympathies were definitely with Polish nationalism. Her kind of focus
Speaker 1: was definitely on on finding a way to to get
Speaker 1: education for herself and to contribute through that that way.
Speaker 1: Let's go forward a little bit to the time when
Speaker 1: she has to make her way without her husband after
Speaker 1: his death, when he was killed in the road accident
Speaker 1: that you mentioned. She is able to assume the position
Speaker 1: he had as professor of general physics at the University
Speaker 1: of Paris. She became the first woman, I understand, to
Speaker 1: hold this position. What was she like in that role?
Speaker 1: What was she like as a leader? How was that
Speaker 1: transition for her? She hated all the public acclaim and
Speaker 1: attention and fuss. She always did, and there was something
Speaker 1: and she suffered miserably from that because after they won
Speaker 1: the Nobel Prize together um in nineteen o three, she
Speaker 1: and Pierre they became a kind of an item. This
Speaker 1: was you know, in some ways this was the positive
Speaker 1: side of a public acclaim. Later she got the negative side, um.
Speaker 1: And it it helped them, um to get a lab um,
Speaker 1: but it also interfered with their work because everybody wanted
Speaker 1: to interview everybody in the family, including Pierre complained at
Speaker 1: one point they even want to interview our cat. And
Speaker 1: they both hated it, hated it. So But then she was, yeah,
Speaker 1: the first woman to teach at the sore Bun and
Speaker 1: it was also a big publicity event. You know, people
Speaker 1: came to sit in at the balcony and all their
Speaker 1: uh and uh and to watch this event. As a teacher,
Speaker 1: I think she was. I think she was probably very
Speaker 1: down to earth and matter of fact um, and she
Speaker 1: would have been very well prepared um and uh. There
Speaker 1: was one I really don't know about exactly what her
Speaker 1: style was in the classroom, but I know that she
Speaker 1: she had actually for a little while she and some
Speaker 1: of her scent as friends took their children out of
Speaker 1: regular school and taught them, And she was very good
Speaker 1: at at teaching young children with um hands on experiments.
Speaker 1: You had mentioned that her life went on in many ways.
Speaker 1: She achieved even greater distinction in some ways, got a
Speaker 1: second Nobel prize after her husband's death. But it must
Speaker 1: have been hard for her to make that transition from
Speaker 1: working so closely with him, being a co researcher with him,
Speaker 1: and then moving into working alone. Oh, it was very hard,
Speaker 1: she um. After he died, she kept a diary which
Speaker 1: was really very important. Disc It had been there, but
Speaker 1: no one else had kind of used it as I
Speaker 1: did in my biography. But she wrote to in her
Speaker 1: diary as though he were still alive, and she addressed
Speaker 1: him in these a long series of letters, and she
Speaker 1: described the lab and coming back to the lab and
Speaker 1: bringing some flowers from the country where they've been together,
Speaker 1: and writing that the flowers are alive my new art,
Speaker 1: and how is that possible? So her her grief was
Speaker 1: was immense, Um but her way of dealing with grief
Speaker 1: was to go to work, and she was a very
Speaker 1: hard worker. And her whole isolation of radium in the
Speaker 1: beginning and radioactivity evolved reducing this large quantities of pitch
Speaker 1: blend into a very much much much squalor quantity in
Speaker 1: order to get this radioactive effect. So sherla grew and
Speaker 1: her fame grew, and she focused on her work, you know.
Speaker 1: Um And of course she had the comfort for a
Speaker 1: while if the affair with Paul Lage vain, but mostly
Speaker 1: mostly she worked and her children attest to that. Eve
Speaker 1: my Eve Curie whom my interview talked about her mother's
Speaker 1: complete obsession with the lab and with her work. You know,
Speaker 1: that was that was her life and it was her salvation. Really.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned her daughter who one especially was so
Speaker 1: involved in her research efforts with her. What was their
Speaker 1: relationship like very close, playful loving, But her daughter Urine
Speaker 1: was also like her, all business. So but we have
Speaker 1: some letters that they exchanged. She became, her daughter became
Speaker 1: really first things she became involved in was the X
Speaker 1: Ray mobiles and she Urine went on her own in
Speaker 1: X raymobile to the bell in front and she writes
Speaker 1: back to her mother, and we have some of those
Speaker 1: letters back and forth. But they were very involved in
Speaker 1: each other's work. And when Iran and her husband Pure
Speaker 1: Jolio discompanied their great discovery of artificial radio activity, they
Speaker 1: the first person who come and see their successful experiment
Speaker 1: was their mother was Marie Curie. Uh. So she was
Speaker 1: deeply involved in her daughter's work. So she dies really
Speaker 1: at an early age in some ways, in her sixties,
Speaker 1: mid sixties, I think, and she died from anemia which
Speaker 1: had to do with her exposure to radio activity. Is
Speaker 1: that the case. Yes, that has been pretty much the
Speaker 1: conclusion and the one that I went along with in
Speaker 1: my book. But I've since um talked with some people
Speaker 1: in the field of of of the radio active exposure
Speaker 1: and think that that her work actually on the X
Speaker 1: raymobiles and her exposure to X rays may have been
Speaker 1: actually more harmful than her work in the laboratory. But
Speaker 1: the combination of things, there can be no doubt um
Speaker 1: contributed to her anemia and her relatively early death. Uh.
Speaker 1: And evidence of that is that her daughter Rana also
Speaker 1: died fairly young, and Eve, the daughter who didn't work
Speaker 1: in the lab, lived over one hundred, So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, probably had they not been exposed to the
Speaker 1: radioactive elements that they worked with, both both Marie and
Speaker 1: her daughter Gren might have lived longer lives. So she
Speaker 1: was clearly remarkable in so many ways. What lessons can
Speaker 1: we take from her life? What lessons do you take
Speaker 1: from her life? Well, stick up for your self for
Speaker 1: your work, I would say, I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: that letter she writes where she says, I've always felt
Speaker 1: the Nobel Prize was being given for my work and
Speaker 1: my personal life had nothing to do with it. And
Speaker 1: U don't allow a kind of double standard let's operated
Speaker 1: in the past to be inflicted on you as a woman.
Speaker 1: I think that's hopefully it's less likely to happen now,
Speaker 1: but it still happens, and we still have different expectations. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know. I think was Elizabeth Warren who said recently,
Speaker 1: you know, just remember, you know, being forceful is not
Speaker 1: a good look. Well, and it's it's an important lessen
Speaker 1: to today. So we can learn about her own resilience
Speaker 1: and stick toudo nous if you will, marching forward to U,
Speaker 1: which is considerably marching forward from these times women were
Speaker 1: awarded Nobel Prizes last year in both chemistry and physics.
Speaker 1: How do you think Madame Curie paved the way for
Speaker 1: those accomplishments. Well, I think I'm sure those women would
Speaker 1: tell you that she was inspiring to them. Um. I
Speaker 1: think we could also ask why did it take so long?
Speaker 1: Indeed at uh you know, there were a number of
Speaker 1: earlier instances of women who should have been recognized and
Speaker 1: were I mean Rosalind Franklin comes to mind, and Lisa
Speaker 1: Mikener uh so, um Um, Marie curious a line, having
Speaker 1: been part of a relationship really probably is what allowed
Speaker 1: her to be given the Nobel Prize because the first time, um,
Speaker 1: there was a possibility and nomination, Pierre was nominated alone,
Speaker 1: and he wrote to them and said, for reasons of symmetry,
Speaker 1: do you think it would be good to have to
Speaker 1: award the Nobel Prize to Marie and me both? So
Speaker 1: he stuck up for her, and the following year she
Speaker 1: was named along with Pierre and I'll Rebecca up so
Speaker 1: uh So, I think one of the reasons that was
Speaker 1: possible was because of Pierre, this ally she had and
Speaker 1: because she was a part of part of partnership with
Speaker 1: the man that took a long time, too long. I'm
Speaker 1: very glad these women have both been recognized that there
Speaker 1: were others who should have been in word. Well, she
Speaker 1: certainly was pioneering. And Um, it's good to know, albeit
Speaker 1: so so late in coming, that we are making at
Speaker 1: least a modicum of progress in this regard. Um, Susan,
Speaker 1: this has been a fascinating conversation, just learning so much
Speaker 1: about Marie Curie. I know, before we close, I do
Speaker 1: want to ask you about the book. I think it's
Speaker 1: Eleanor and Hick. You want to tell us about that. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's called Eleanor and Hick, the love Affair that shaped
Speaker 1: the First Lady. And it's the story of Eleanor Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: romantic relationship with a journalist named Lorena Hiccock. Um, and
Speaker 1: uh it was. It's a very it's a very um
Speaker 1: touching story, I would say, of a a romance that
Speaker 1: lasted maybe four or five years, and then for Louie
Speaker 1: Hiccock lasted for a lifetime. She and the friendship went
Speaker 1: on until until Eleanor Roosevelt died. Um, and Lorena Hipcock
Speaker 1: really did help Eleanor Roosevelt to find a way to
Speaker 1: be a new kind of first lady UM independently UM,
Speaker 1: have a relationship with the press, and write about her
Speaker 1: life in her column My Day. Those were things that
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened without Marina Hincock. So that's that's that book. Well,
Speaker 1: you keep putting out interesting stories about historical figures. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we're just so grateful to you to have had
Speaker 1: this chance to learn more through you about Marie Cury today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Susan Quinn. Thank you. There's so
Speaker 1: much more to Marie Cury than I ever knew thanks
Speaker 1: to Susan Quinn. Here are three things I took from
Speaker 1: that conversation. First, Marie Curry was strong enough to stand
Speaker 1: up to anyone who would hold her back because she
Speaker 1: was a woman. She was asked not to go to
Speaker 1: Sweden to accept the Nobel Prize because she had been
Speaker 1: having an affair and that would aris the king. She
Speaker 1: refused and picked up her prize in person. Second, her
Speaker 1: vision went beyond the laboratories where she made her great discoveries.
Speaker 1: During World War One, she came up with the idea
Speaker 1: of creating mobile X ray units that could be moved
Speaker 1: easily to the front lines, saving time and many lives. Finally,
Speaker 1: the challenges Marie Curry overcame remained an inspiration for women
Speaker 1: in science today, and her singularity is a reminder of
Speaker 1: all the women scientists who didn't gain recognition, women like
Speaker 1: Rosalind Franklin, a pioneer in DNA research, and physicist Lisa Mightner.
Speaker 1: Women are finally winning novels in science. But as Susan quinness,
Speaker 1: what took so long? Tune in next Thursday to hear
Speaker 1: about our next featured woman and discover why she's one
Speaker 1: of Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear. Seneca's one hundred
Speaker 1: Women to Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca Women
Speaker 1: Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with support from founding
Speaker 1: partner PNG Have a Great Day,