Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum here. When Marie Kerrey and her husband Pierre
Speaker 1: won the Nobel Prize for Physics in nineteen o three,
Speaker 1: their older daughter Iranne was just six years old and
Speaker 1: their younger daughter ev was yet unborn. Little could they
Speaker 1: have imagined that their extended family would go on to
Speaker 1: hold more Nobel Prizes than any other. It all started
Speaker 1: with the romance and collaboration between Marie and Pierre. They
Speaker 1: met in eighteen ninety four when she, at twenty seven
Speaker 1: years old, took a job in Pierre's lab. He was
Speaker 1: then a thirty five year old physicists studying crystals and magnetism,
Speaker 1: and they quickly fell in love. The next year they
Speaker 1: were married. Though Pierre was several years her senior, it
Speaker 1: was Marie who steered their work into radiation. For her
Speaker 1: doctoral thesis, she began building on the work of Henri
Speaker 1: Bakrel and German physicist Wilhelm Runtgun, who had recently discovered
Speaker 1: X rays. Marie eventually hypothesized that the mysterious penetrating rays
Speaker 1: were a property of a given elements atoms. Pierre shelved
Speaker 1: his work with crystals. To help Marie further her discoveries,
Speaker 1: they set out to measure the strength of the rays
Speaker 1: by adapting an instrument Pierre developed studying an or containing uranium.
Speaker 1: Marie noted that it emitted much more radiation than one
Speaker 1: would expect from the element alone. While investigating the source
Speaker 1: of the rays, they discovered two new radioactive elements, radium
Speaker 1: and polonium, which Marine named for Poland, the country of
Speaker 1: her birth. Polonium was four hundred times more radioactive than uranium.
Speaker 1: The pair were deeply devoted to their work and to
Speaker 1: one another, yet just three years after they won their
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize, their collaboration ended tragically when Pierre was run
Speaker 1: over by a horse drawn cart. Marie was devastated, but
Speaker 1: we spoke via email with Shelley Emling, author of Marie
Speaker 1: Curie and Her Daughters, The Private Lives of Cy his
Speaker 1: first family. She said, from all accounts, Marie loved her
Speaker 1: husband deeply and was overwhelmed with grief, so much so
Speaker 1: that she refused to talk about Pierre. However, she eventually
Speaker 1: published a biography of Pierre in ninety three. In it,
Speaker 1: Murray wrote, it is impossible for me to express the
Speaker 1: profoundness and importance of the crisis brought into my life
Speaker 1: by the loss of the one who had been my
Speaker 1: closest companion and best friend. Crushed by the blow, I
Speaker 1: did not feel able to face the future. I could
Speaker 1: not forget, however, what my husband used to sometimes say, that,
Speaker 1: even deprived of him, I ought to continue my work.
Speaker 1: And continue she did, even though her very presence in
Speaker 1: the field was somewhat controversial. Marie was the first woman
Speaker 1: to receive a PhD in France, the first female professor
Speaker 1: at the Saban, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize,
Speaker 1: the first person to win more than one Nobel Prize
Speaker 1: and to this day the only woman to win more
Speaker 1: than once, and the first person to win a Nobel
Speaker 1: in more than one scientific field. And not everyone of
Speaker 1: the time thought Marie deserved to share the scientific stage
Speaker 1: with her male colleagues, so in nineteen o three, the
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Marie and her
Speaker 1: husband for their study of radiation, as well as to
Speaker 1: Beckrell for his observation of spontaneous radiation in uranium. But
Speaker 1: originally the members of the French Academy of Sciences nominated
Speaker 1: only Pierre and Beckrell for the prize. Marie was included
Speaker 1: only after Pierre worked to persuade some of the Nobel
Speaker 1: committee that his wife deserved to share the honor to
Speaker 1: and at the awards ceremony, the president of the Swedish
Speaker 1: Academy downplayed her contributions, quoting the Bible in his speech,
Speaker 1: it is not good that man should be alone. I
Speaker 1: will make a help meet for him. Eight years later,
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven, Marie was the sole recipient of the
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize in Chemistry in recognition of her discovery of
Speaker 1: radium and polonium and her subsequent research into nature of
Speaker 1: those elements. In that time, there was pushback from people
Speaker 1: who believed she was receiving the prize for essentially the
Speaker 1: same work and thus that she didn't deserve it. But
Speaker 1: whatever anyone thought about it, those Nobel prizes made the
Speaker 1: reserved Marie a celebrity. But we also spoke with Naomi Passakoff,
Speaker 1: author of Marie Curry and the Science of Radioactivity. She
Speaker 1: said she was a renowned scientist at a time when
Speaker 1: there were virtually no women in the field. She was
Speaker 1: a heroine. She was an oddity in some ways. She
Speaker 1: was famous for being famous. In Marie and her two
Speaker 1: daughters set off across the Atlantic Ocean on their first
Speaker 1: journey to America, where Marie was mobbed by fans and
Speaker 1: given a queen's welcome. In New York, Marie was hosted
Speaker 1: at the Waldorf Astoria Carnegie Hall in the American Museum
Speaker 1: of Natural History, which hosted an exhibit dedicated to her
Speaker 1: discovery of radium. Universities conferred honorary degrees on her, and
Speaker 1: President Warren G. Harding held an event in her honor
Speaker 1: at White House. Em Ling said, until that time, her
Speaker 1: daughters had no idea that their mother was famous. Marie
Speaker 1: was nothing if not humble, But everywhere they went in
Speaker 1: America they were greeted by throngs of reporters and flashing cameras.
Speaker 1: People wanted Marie's autograph. The girls were stunned, as was Marie.
Speaker 1: Speaking of her family, Marie was determined not to give
Speaker 1: up her scientific work after the birth of her daughters,
Speaker 1: em Ling said, But although she was relentless in her
Speaker 1: scientific pursuits, she was also devoted to her daughters. It's
Speaker 1: true that she wasn't able to spend an inordinate amount
Speaker 1: of time with her children, which meant Marie's father in
Speaker 1: law and others often cared for them, but she did
Speaker 1: lead by example. Em Ling added that she was especially
Speaker 1: involved in their upbringing. After Pierre's death, Marie enrolled her
Speaker 1: girls in a cooperative school in which the parents took
Speaker 1: turns teaching the children lessons in their areas of expertise.
Speaker 1: Marie taught physical sciences. As the years went on, Wren
Speaker 1: took her father's place as Marie's colleague. During World War One,
Speaker 1: when Iren was a teenager, she assisted her mother in
Speaker 1: bringing X rays to the battlefront to treat wounded soldiers.
Speaker 1: Iran worked alongside her mother running mobile X ray units
Speaker 1: in field hospitals and specially outfitted vehicles, which the soldiers
Speaker 1: dubbed petit curies. Passakoff said Marie felt so confident in
Speaker 1: her daughter's knowledge and abilities that she had Irene give
Speaker 1: courses in radiation to soldiers and nurses. This was even
Speaker 1: before Wren had earned her university degree. Later, Iran became
Speaker 1: her mother's assistant at the Radium Institute while completing her studies.
Speaker 1: It's there that a Wren met engineer Frederic Jolo, a
Speaker 1: trainee in Marie's lab, whom she married in nine In
Speaker 1: ninety four, the couple made an important discovery when they
Speaker 1: figured out a way to artificially create radioactive adams in
Speaker 1: the lab. It earned them a shared Nobel in Chemistry
Speaker 1: the following year, making Irene and her parents the only
Speaker 1: mother daughter and father daughter pairs ever to receive the prize.
Speaker 1: Though like her mother, Iran eventually died of prolonged exposure
Speaker 1: to radiation. But what about Marie's other daughter Ev. Rather
Speaker 1: than follow her parents into the sciences, Ev found success
Speaker 1: as a writer. Perhaps her best known work was Madame Curie,
Speaker 1: a biography of her mother that she wrote after Marie
Speaker 1: died in nineteen thirty four. The book became a huge
Speaker 1: bestseller and earned EV literary acclaim. Emling said. During World
Speaker 1: War Two, Ev became a foreign correspondent, traveling tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of miles to wartime fronts that included Iran, Iraq, India, China, Burma,
Speaker 1: and North Africa. Ev went on to publish a second
Speaker 1: best selling book about her experiences, this one called Journey
Speaker 1: among Warriors. Emling said. When V arrived for a book
Speaker 1: tour in the United States, where her smiling face graced
Speaker 1: the cover of Time magazine In February of nineteen forty,
Speaker 1: she was greeted as a celebrity. She gave lectures and
Speaker 1: had dinner with Eleanor Roosevelt. After the war, Ev turned
Speaker 1: to humanitarian work. In nineteen fifty two, she was appointed
Speaker 1: Special Adviser to the first Secretary General of NATO. In
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four, she married an American diplomat, Henry Richardson Labouise,
Speaker 1: who later became the executive director of UNISEEF. EV would
Speaker 1: also travel extensively for UNI SEF, and in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: when UNISF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it was
Speaker 1: Labuis who accepted the honor on the organization's behalf, making
Speaker 1: him the fifth person in the Curis extended family to
Speaker 1: receive the prize. Ev would die in two thousand seven
Speaker 1: at the age of a d two, and the distinguished
Speaker 1: scientific tradition of the Curie family still lives on. Ellen Lazenzolio,
Speaker 1: the daughter of Irene and Frederic, is a well respected
Speaker 1: nuclear physicist in France, and Ellen's husband, Michel Lazene is
Speaker 1: also a nuclear physicist, and their son is an astro physicist.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Jennifery Marquees and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. I've been meaning to do this episode for
Speaker 1: a while, but wanted to air it today because Radium
Speaker 1: is the subject of the first episode of a new
Speaker 1: podcast that I'm narrating. It's called American Shadows and premieres today.
Speaker 1: It's produced by Aaron Minki and his team at Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild along with I Heart Radio, and it's an
Speaker 1: exploration of the dark, true stories from America's past. It
Speaker 1: gets into some disturbing territory, but if you like lore
Speaker 1: or unobscured, I hope you'll give it a try. That's
Speaker 1: American Shadows, available wherever fine podcasts are found. Brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.