Truth
Photos/Videos
By analyzing these photos and videos from Marie Curie's life, we obtain a clearer understanding of her true personality. We can contrast this with the fabricated character the secondary sources portray to develop our knowledge of bias in Curie's life.
Peter Austin, PhD
Author, Historian
Interview, January 2021
Michon, Gerard P. “Solvay Conferences,” (2008)
Marie Curie with some of the greatest minds in history including Albert Einstein, Henri Poincare, Paul Langevin, Ernest Rutherford, and Max Planck.
Marie Curie wanted to be seen as an equal to the male scientists of the time. She didn't want anyone to think of her differently because she was a woman. This picture shows that Marie Curie could hold her own in an intellectual conversation with some of the greatest minds in history.
AFP Via Getty Images (1904)
Marie Curie with Pierre and their first daughter Irene
Marie and Irene look depressed in almost every photo taken of them
“Don’t you love Irène?” he asked. “It seems to me that I wouldn’t prefer the idea of reading a paper by [Ernest] Rutherford, to getting what my body needs and looking after such an agreeable little girl.” Georges Sagnac
Curie Visits America
Nobelprize.org (1921)
"As the first woman elected to the Academy of Medicine in France, Marie Curie visits American President Warren Harding in his garden, in October 1921. American women honour Mrs. Curie with a gift of one gram of radium, worth half a million Swedish kronor."
"The marquee event of her six-week U.S. tour was held in the East Room of the White House. President Warren Harding spoke at length, praising her “great attainments in the realms of science and intellect” and saying she represented the best in womanhood. “We lay at your feet the testimony of that love which all the generations of men have been wont to bestow upon the noble woman, the unselfish wife, the devoted mother.”" Smithsonian Magazine (2011)
President Harding’s comments reflected women's role in society. Women were seen as too sentimental to do objective science. Defying all stereotypes, Curie was an incredible scientist who worked alongside well-known geniuses like Albert Einstein and became famous herself.