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#ClemmiesParisStories #7: perhaps France's most famous naturalised citizen, Marie Curie. 1/17
Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw in 1867. She began her studies there illegally – women in Poland were barred from higher education. 2/17
In 1891, following the death of her mother, she moved to Paris, where her sister provided her with food and lodging on the rue d'Allemagne, allowing her to continue studying. 3/17
(The rue d'Allemagne, in the 19th arrondissement, is now the avenue Jean-Jaurès. It was renamed in 1914, just after the outbreak of war, to remove the association with Germany and to honour socialist hero and ardent pacifist Jean Jaurès, assassinated the previous month). 4/17
Enrolled at the Faculté des sciences, she moved to the left bank, living on the rue Flatters. She achieved degrees in physics and maths in 1893 and 1894 respectively. 5/17
Her plans to return to Poland were soon scuppered by love. Indeed, fellow scientist Pierre Curie stole her heart and persuaded her to stay. In 1897, she gave birth to their first child, Irène; the following year, the couple discovered radium. 6/17
They worked together in a shabby lab on the rue Lhomond in the 5th arrondissement. 7/17
(This is Emily in Paris territory – at one end of that street is the Place de l'Estrapade, where Emily lived).
https://twitter.com/bchadwickfrance/status/1320435783208181762?s=19
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https://twitter.com/bchadwickfrance/status/1320435783208181762?s=19
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In 1903 she became the first woman to win a Nobel prize, sharing the physics prize with her husband and radioactivity discoverer Henri Becquerel. 9/17
Tragedy struck in 1906, when Pierre died in a road accident near the Pont Neuf. Marie was offered his chair at the university and soon became the first female professor at the Sorbonne. 10/17
In 1911, Curie became the first person to win two Nobel prizes. She remains the only woman to achieve such a feat and the only person to have won in two different fields (this time it was chemistry). 11/17
Her lab on the rue Cuvier is now part of the Musée Curie. 12/17
When war broke out, Curie created France's first military radiology centre and oversaw the creation of 200 radiography units for battlefield surgeons. Among other things, this allowed surgeons to determine if a limb could be saved, avoiding amputation. 13/17
Not content with this contribution, she also lent financial support to the war effort, buying war bonds with her prize money. She tried to donate her gold medals to France, but the national bank refused. 14/17
Marie Curie died in 1934, her life shortened by exposure to radiation. She was buried with her husband in Sceaux, outside Paris. 15/17
In 1995, the couple's remains were moved to the Panthéon. After a lifetime of remarkable firsts, she thus became the first woman to be interred there on her own merits. 16/17
If you take the Ivry branch of metro line 7, you will pass through the station Pierre et Marie Curie. This opened in 1946, but until 2007 it only bore Pierre's name. It became the third station on the network to bear the name of a woman who was not a saint. 17/17
Please share if you enjoyed this thread! And if you want to see Clemmie's other Paris stories: https://twitter.com/bchadwickfrance/status/1321048758604496896?s=19
I got a lot of the info for this thread from this @ParisZigZag article: https://www.pariszigzag.fr/paris-au-quotidien/le-paris-de-marie-curie
Photos from Wikimedia Commons:
Avenue Jean-Jaurès: Mbzt (CC BY 3.0)
Museum: Lacek2 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Cemetery: Croquant (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Tomb: Rémih (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Metro: inside Hegor (CC BY-SA 3.0), outside Chabe01 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The other photos are my own or in the public domain.
Avenue Jean-Jaurès: Mbzt (CC BY 3.0)
Museum: Lacek2 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Cemetery: Croquant (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Tomb: Rémih (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Metro: inside Hegor (CC BY-SA 3.0), outside Chabe01 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The other photos are my own or in the public domain.
