Maria Skłodowska-Curie

Chemist and physicist, the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize and the first person to be awarded it in two fields. She created a new branch of the science of radioactivity, to which she devoted her entire life.

Thu, 11/07/1867 - 12:00 - Wed, 07/04/1934 - 12:00

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Marie Skłodowska-Curie, fot. © The Granger Collection / Forum

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Maria Salomea Skłodowska was born on 7th November 1867 in Warsaw. Her parents were Władysław, a professor of mathematics and physics and a teacher in Warsaw secondary schools, and Bronisława, née Boguska, a teacher and headmistress of the school at 16 Freta Street. Both parents came from the impoverished gentry. She was the youngest of five children, and her nickname at home was ‘Mania’. When she was nine, her eldest sister Zofia died of typhoid fever, and two years later she was orphaned by her mother, who died of tuberculosis after a long illness. These experiences caused her to reject faith in God, and she began to struggle with a painful sense of hurt and abandonment, which manifested itself in a lifelong recurring depression.

School years

Thanks to the efforts of her parents, from an early age her life was focused on learning. She showed great aptitude in this direction: she was characterised by an exceptionally good memory and could quickly understand intricate science. The first school she attended was the school on Freta Street, whose headmistress had previously been her mother. Then, in 1877, she started at the school run by Jadwiga Sikorska at 153 Marszałkowska Street, and in 1883 she graduated from the Third Female Government Gymnasium with a gold medal as the best student of the year.

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MSC Museum, Marie Skłodowska-Curie's home, Warsaw, photo: Wojtek Laski / East News

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After the fall of the January Uprising, schooling in the Russian partition was heavily Russified and subject to strict control by the authorities. Polish teachers kept a double timetable so that young people could learn Polish history and the Polish language, but this was associated with repression, which affected Władysław Skłodowski among others. His youngest daughter was very uncomfortable with the inspections, the necessity to speak Russian and to express herself fondly about the Tsar. Stories from her school years show her high sensitivity to the Polish cause and deep-rooted patriotism.

After graduating from secondary school, the sixteen-year-old Skłodowska began a year-long holiday – a time of recuperation for her after difficult personal experiences and intensive study. During this time, she visited the family estates of the Boguski and Skłodowski families, spent her days reading novels and doing activities with her cousins, such as fishing, playing in the backyard or hiking. She also read poetry and enjoyed memorising works by Polish poets. She was attached to the countryside and nature. In her later years, she particularly enjoyed returning to Poland for hikes in the Polish Tatra Mountains.

The road to university

Due to the impossibility of studying at the University of Warsaw, which remained closed to women, in 1884 Skłodowska enrolled in courses at the Flying University, an underground educational institution. She earned extra money by tutoring and began applying for a position as a governess in Warsaw. Her dream, together with her sister Bronisława, was to study in Paris – her sister wanted to follow in her brother’s footsteps and study medicine, while Maria planned to become a scientist. The young women made a pact – firstly, Maria would help Bronisława to support herself during her medical studies in Paris, then, after graduation, the older sister would return the favour and support the younger one. Maria Skłodowska therefore employed herself as a governess with the Żórawski family in Szczuki and sent half her salary abroad. At that time she also founded an informal school for village children, where she and the landlord’s daughter taught children to read and write – the risk of such activities was imprisonment or deportation to Siberia. This was also the time of her first love – Kazimierz Żórawski, a mathematics student and son of Mr and Mrs Żórawski, intended to marry Maria, but his family refused, considering it a misalliance.

When in 1889 Władysław Skłodowski obtained a position as director of a reformatory in Studzieniec, enabling him to help support Bronisława, Maria returned to Warsaw, where she continued working as a governess for another year. She also prepared for university by studying on her own, and took up studies in the laboratory of the Physical Laboratory of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture, headed by her cousin Józef Jerzy Boguski. There, under the guidance of Professor Napoleon Milicer, she learned the secrets of chemical analysis.

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Marie Skłodowska-Curie, photo: reproduction by Piotr Mecik / Forum

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Sorbonne student

Bronisława Skłodowska married a doctor she had met in Paris, Kazimierz Dłuski, and in accordance with the pact made years before, invited her sister to come and pursue her plans for further studies. Arriving in France in the autumn of 1891 was a demanding experience. Maria Skłodowska had to learn French as well as physics and mathematics, as she herself recalled in her autobiography:

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I was too poorly prepared to listen to physics lectures at the Sorbonne because, despite all my efforts, I was not able to reach the level in Poland from which my French colleagues started.

In addition, she found it difficult to concentrate on her studies in her sister’s flat, which was far from the university but was a bustling meeting place for Polish émigré artists. Consequently, after a few months, she moved out and lived alone, first in the Latin Quarter at 3 rue Flatters, then in a different cheaply rented room every semester.

She studied at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, where she was one of the few women. Her teachers included professors Paul Appell, Gabriel Lippmann and Henri Poincaré. In 1893, she passed her bachelor’s degree in physics with the best result of the year. Thanks to the efforts of a Polish friend, she was awarded an Aleksandrowicz Scholarship enabling her to continue her studies in Paris, and just one year later, in 1894, she completed her bachelor’s degree in chemistry, achieving the second-highest result.

Pierre Curie

Commissioned by the French Society for the Promotion of National Industry, Skłodowska began researching the magnetic properties of steel in Professor Lippman’s laboratory, but she needed to find a larger space to work in. Thanks to the suggestion of her sister’s friend, the physicist Józef Kowalski, she asked for a place in Pierre Curie’s laboratory. Curie was a professor at the Municipal School of Physics and Industrial Chemistry in Paris, an inventor of precision instruments such as the quadrant electrometer, and a specialist in the laws of magnetism. Although he was not in a position to help Skłodowska with finding a place to do her research, he supported her with his knowledge – thus their acquaintance began.

After a few months, Curie asked Skłodowska to marry him. Even then, he understood very well how important scientific research was to her and how attached she was to her homeland. Skłodowska did not agree immediately: she had doubts as to whether she was ready to be separated from her family. Moreover, she had always wanted to work for Poland. She returned to the country for the holidays, unsure whether she would still come back to France, but Curie persisted in his attempts to convince her. Eventually, their families came to an agreement. Maria Skłodowska and Pierre Curie had a civil wedding on 26th July 1895 in the garden of Pierre’s family home in Sceaux. It was an unconventional wedding – no white dress or rings. Skłodowska preferred to choose a dark dress, more practical for her later work in the laboratory. They set off on their honeymoon on bicycles purchased with the money they had donated, travelling along the coast of Brittany and through the Auvergne mountains. In her memoirs, Skłodowska wrote that also later bicycle trips around Paris were a great pastime for them after a day’s work in the laboratory.

After her marriage, she spelled her name differently – her diploma for the first Nobel Prize shows her as Marie Curie, while her second diploma shows her as Marie Sklodowska Curie. She also signed herself Madame Curie, Madame Pierre Curie, Marie Curie-Sklodowska, Marie Sklodowska-Curie.

Becquerel’s rays

Skłodowska-Curie worked with her husband in the laboratory of the School of Physics and Chemistry, but each on their own research – he on the growth of crystals, she on the magnetic properties of metals. On 12th September 1897, their eldest daughter, Irène, was born. Curie divided her time between her duties as a mother and as a scientist, but this had a negative impact on her mental health, manifesting itself in panic attacks and general brokenness. Pierre’s widowed father became a great help with the young child and housekeeping, allowing Skłodowska to begin research for her doctoral thesis.

She chose uranium radiation as her subject, which Henri Becquerel had discovered some years ago. He had noticed that a stone containing uranium was blackening photographic film, which indicated that it was emitting radiation. Becquerel at first thought it was phosphorescence and abandoned the subject, considering it of little interest, but Curie continued the French chemist’s research. She was assisted in her work by her husband, above all by improving his own invention, the electrometer, and other apparatuses used by his wife. Skłodowska distinguished herself in her work by the extraordinary dexterity and concentration that her research and the tools she used required. Her examination of various minerals led her to the conclusion that only those containing uranium or thorium (another of the, as the Pole discovered, radioactive elements) were active (emitting rays), while some minerals showed an activity three or four times greater than that calculated for uranium. Skłodowska wrote in her autobiography:

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Pondering its cause, I saw only one explanation, namely that there must be some unknown, but very active substance in these minerals. My husband agreed with me and insisted that we begin the search for this substance at once, in the hope that our combined efforts would quickly lead to its discovery. However, when we began this work, neither of us could have foreseen that it would lead to the creation of a new branch of knowledge, in which we would work for the rest of our lives.

And so Skłodowska-Curie discovered that there was a hitherto unknown element in the uranium-bearing minerals, which was also much more radioactive. In July 1898, she named it polonium, from the Latin Polonia (Poland) , in honour of her home country. Her observations also led her to two revolutionary conclusions: radioactivity is measurable and is one of the properties of atoms (today, it is more precisely known that of the nucleus of the atom itself). These conclusions, however, passed unnoticed at the time – Skłodowska-Curie did not yet have a doctoral degree, was a Polish emigrant and, above all, a woman, which in itself was reason enough for the scientific world of the time not to pay much attention to her discoveries.

Soon Pierre Curie decided to abandon his work on crystal growth and delve into the direction of radioactivity research with his wife. Marie was determined to discover another element, which she succeeded in doing in December 1898. She named it radium, from the Latin radius, meaning ‘ray’.

The happiest years

Although Curie was certain of the existence of the elements she had discovered, at that time they had not yet been isolated and thus chemically confirmed. This task was to occupy her for years to come. The couple’s greatest difficulty was finding a laboratory site and funds for research. They applied to the Sorbonne authorities for a space, but the university did not have a suitable space for them. Eventually, the city’s School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry provided them with an abandoned hangar, a former dissecting room – conditions hardly worthy of outstanding scientists. The second problem was the lack of funds to purchase the necessary materials – the object of their research. Pierre Curie managed to negotiate the transfer to them for free from the Austrian government of uranium tar from which uranium had been extracted and which, now considered useless, was stored in a forest in Jáchymov. They first received a hundred kilograms, then a tonne of the valuable waste. Skłodowska-Curie wrote in her autobiography:

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And here we were, in a shabby old shed, living out the best and happiest of our years, devoting whole days to work. I often had to cook a meal there, lest I interrupt some important experience. Sometimes I had to spend the whole day stirring a boiling mass with a heavy iron rod, almost as big as myself. I was then sometimes really exhausted. At other times, the work consisted of extremely meticulous and delicate partial crystallisation in order to concentrate the radium solution.

Research into the isolation of radium consumed the couple to the end. Skłodowska-Curie recalled:

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One of our pastimes at the time – was to come into the studio in the evening. We could then see on all sides the faintly shimmering outlines of the slides and bags that housed our preparations. It was a truly wonderful sight and always new to us. The glowing tubes looked like faint, magical lights.

In fact, this luminous spectacle was what was slowly debilitating their bodies: they did not realise how damaging radioactivity research was to their health, which manifested itself at first as, among other things, rheumatic pains in Pierre or emaciation in Marie.

In 1900, Pierre Curie was offered an associate professorship at the Sorbonne, while his wife was offered a position as a physics teacher at a girls' school in Sèvres near Paris. In 1902, Skłodowska-Curie succeeded in isolating one decigram of pure radium chloride, but due to the working conditions it took her another four years to describe chemically that this was a new element.

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First Nobel Prize

In 1903, Skłodowska-Curie defended her doctorate, and at the end of the year she, her husband and Becquerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of radioactivity – the new elements radium and polonium had not yet been mentioned at the time. The first version of the nomination letter omitted the Polish woman, while her merits were attributed to two men. It was only thanks to the interference of Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler that she was added to the nomination, thus becoming the first woman ever to receive the Nobel Prize. Becquerel himself went to receive the prize, while the couple, due to illness, did not travel to Stockholm for the reading until 1905. In keeping with the tradition of the Nobel Prize, the laureates gave lectures, but only Pierre Curie was asked to speak. He took advantage of the situation and, in the lecture, clearly highlighted his wife’s achievements, attributing all due credit to her.

On 6th December 1905, the second Curie daughter, Ève, was born and Pierre, thanks to the Nobel Prize and universal acclaim, was given a chair in physics at the Sorbonne, created especially for him. With a new workplace and, consequently, a new space for research, the couple were finally able to leave their old laboratory.

Obtaining the prize disturbed the peace they cherished, and a veritable cult of radium swept the world. At first, when the use of this element in medicine was problematic, all sorts of other ways of using its highly diluted form proliferated. It was added to creams, teas or bath salts. It was added to hair tonics to stop baldness and to toothpaste to whiten and strengthen teeth.

Soon, a new method of therapy called curietherapy, or radiotherapy, was developed, first in France, then in other countries. It was primarily used to treat cancer. The demand for radium increased with its price, but the Curies did not patent the element or the method of obtaining it, finding great value in the fact that their work was for the good of mankind. As they said, ‘that would have gone against the spirit of science’.

Female professor at the Sorbonne

Unexpectedly, a powerful blow came – on 19th April 1906, Pierre Curie died a tragic death when hit by a horse-drawn freight cart. The loss was felt by scientific circles as much as a loss of national stature. A distraught Skłodowska-Curie kept a diary for a year in which she recorded her thoughts to her late husband, and she also continued his unfinished research.

The Polish woman agreed to take over her husband’s duties at the university and was therefore given a professorial chair. This was also a historic event, as she became the first woman to lecture at the Sorbonne, first as an associate professor and from 1908 as a full professor. Crowds had been waiting for her first lecture on 5th November 1906 since early morning. When Skłodowska-Curie appeared in the auditorium, she was greeted by a storm of applause, but she, showing no emotion, in a cool and matter-of-fact tone, began her lecture where Pierre Curie had left off.

In 1910, Curie’s father-in-law died, which was another blow and a difficulty in balancing family life and work. She placed great importance on the upbringing of her daughters, their education, and physical activity, which she considered extremely important. Despite the fact that she was bringing them up as Frenchwomen, in order to protect them from the conflict of choosing between their homelands, she hired a Polish governess so that Irène and Ève learned Polish. With some professors she knew from the Sorbonne, she set up a college for a group of their children, in which each scholar gave elementary lectures. The experimental teaching lasted two years and brought some good results: Skłodowska’s elder daughter easily passed her matriculation exam and went on to study at the Sorbonne. Eventually Irène Joliot-Curie followed in her parents' footsteps and became a physicochemist, and in 1935 she and her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie were awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

In 1910, Skłodowska-Curie was due to be awarded the Legion of Honour, but she declined, as had her husband a few years earlier – both opposed to any honorary decoration. At the urging of her colleagues, however, she submitted her candidature to the Paris Academy of Sciences, which was expected to benefit her laboratory. Her candidature did not go through – the Academy was not yet ready to admit women.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

In 1911, Curie, this time individually, was awarded the Nobel Prize for the second time – in chemistry – for the discovery of new elements and the obtaining of pure radium. She was the first person to win the Nobel Prize in two different fields (this distinction was later shared by Linus Pauling, winning the 1954 Chemistry Prize and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize) and to date remains the only woman to have received the prize twice.

In 1912, the Warsaw Scientific Society invited Skłodowska-Curie to cooperate in setting up a new radiological laboratory. The scientist agreed to take over the management and organisation of the research, but she did not plan to leave France, so she delegated two of her students, Jan Kazimierz Danysz and Ludwik Wertenstein, to run the laboratory. In 1913, she arrived in Warsaw for the opening ceremony, which sincerely moved her. She wrote: ‘A touching reception was prepared for me. I was also left with an indelible memory of the impulse of a nation capable of building something useful in extremely difficult political conditions’.

With her second Nobel Prize, Skłodowska-Curie, after five years of effort, persuaded the French government and opened a private Radium Institute in Paris in 1914 – a modern medical and research facility where radioactivity research was carried out in a well-equipped laboratory.

Radiological activities during the war

Maria Skłodowska-Curie with her daughter in a field hospital in 1914, photo by Studio Emka Publishing House

The war, which broke out in 1914, found Skłodowska-Curie in the French capital. Because of the danger of an attack on Paris, the government instructed her to bring the radium held at the Institute to Bordeaux, which she did in person, after which she returned to Paris.

She felt the need to use her knowledge for the benefit of the medical service, so she took charge of the organisation of the radiology and radiotherapy service in military hospitals. Her main task was to provide Roentgen apparatus, which made helping the wounded incomparably more efficient. She also organised radiology trucks, called ‘little Curies’, which arrived wherever there was a need. She then obtained a driving licence so that she could drive one of these vehicles herself. Her activities, thanks to private donations and the support of the Le Patronage Nationel des Blessés committee, were greatly expanded over time. Skłodowska-Curie was extremely committed to her work, visiting numerous military districts and identifying needs, looking after hospitals and teaching new staff to use the apparatus. She noted that it was important to train primarily women in this field, as able-bodied men were being transferred, resulting in the need to find new staff. She initiated the establishment of a radiology department at the School of Nursing located at the Edith Cavell Hospital. In 1916, courses were launched at the Radium Institute (run by, among others, Curie’s elder daughter), through which 150 auxiliaries were trained, who were also ready to work independently. All this activity was described by Skłodowska in her book Radiology and the War (published under the name Madame Pierre Curie), describing the importance of radiology and its development during the war.

After the war

In 1920, on the 25th anniversary of the discovery of radium, the French government passed a law giving Marie Curie an honorary annual pension (the last to receive this pension was Louis Pasteur in 1874). In 1922, she became a member of the French Academy of Medicine.

Thanks to the initiative of the American journalist William Brown Meloney, Skłodowska-Curie received a gram of radium in 1921 and money collected for the Marie Curie Radium Fund. This resulted in a trip to America, and all the gifts were given to her Institute.

Towards the end of her life, one of her dreams – of Poland having a modern radium institute – came true. In 1925, she came to Warsaw for the ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the institute on Wawelska Street, and in 1932 for its official opening – her last visit to her homeland. She donated a gram of radium to the institution, which she had received from her American friends. In 1951, the Radium Institute was renamed the Institute of Oncology, and today it is known as the Maria Skłodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology.

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Oncology Center, Maria Skłodowska-Curie Institute, Warsaw

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She died of leukaemia on 4th July 1934 in an Alpine sanatorium in Sallanches. The real killer, however, was radium and long-term exposure to its effects, as shown by her unusual symptoms and blood tests. She was buried in the presence of her loved ones in the Curie family tomb in Sceaux Cemetery. During a modest ceremony, her siblings threw a handful of soil brought from Poland onto the coffin. On 20th April 1995, her ashes and those of her husband were transferred and laid to rest in the Pantheon in Paris.

The life and achievements of Marie Skłodowska-Curie have inspired numerous novels, biographies, biographical films and other cultural works, not only in Poland, but all over the world. One entry in particular is a biography written and published in 1937 by the scientist’s younger daughter, Ève Curie Labouisse. The book was published in more than 80 countries and quickly became a bestseller. Craters on the Moon and Mars, a mountain on Spitsbergen, the element Curium (Cm) or minerals were named after Marie Skłodowska-Curie. She went down in history as an outstanding scientist and a pioneer in a world where the rules were set by men.

_{Originally written in Polish by Aleksandra Bogucka, Feb 2025, translated by Patryk Grabowski, March 2025}

_Sources:_{Curie, E. (2015).}_{Maria Curie: Biografia}_{. Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza RYTM; Estreicher, T. (1983). ‘Curie Maria’ in P}_{olski Słownik Biograficzny}_{. T. IV. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności; Goldsmith, B. (2005).}_{Geniusz i Obsesja: Wewnętrzny Świat Marii Curie}_{. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie; Skłodowska-Curie, M. (1960).}_{Autobiografia}_{. Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe}

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