ASHLAND — Madame Marie Curie was a brilliant scientist. She was awarded two Nobel Prizes, one in physics in 1903 and another in chemistry in 1911.
She discovered the elements polonium and radium and gave radioactivity its name. Her chronic poor health and eventual death at age 66 may have resulted from her work with radioactive substances. No one knew then that precautions were needed.
The Ashland Chautauqua virtual book discussion on March 24 at 7 p.m. will explore the story of Marie Curie’s life as told by her daughter, Eve Curie, in Madame Curie: A Biography, published in 1937.
Chautauqua scholar Susan Marie Frontczak will lead the virtual discussion and will portray Marie Curie during Ashland Chautauqua’s five-day event in July. Registration in advance is required for the virtual event. It is not necessary to read the book.
Eve was very different from Marie but admired her mother greatly. Madame Curie is obviously a labor of love, and yet is quite revealing of this woman whose passion for scientific research was so all-consuming that she often neglected to eat or sleep, to the degree of endangering her very existence.
Marie’s life began as a Polish girl named Maria (Manya) Sklodowska, the youngest child in an intellectual and loving family living under the repressive Russian regime that ruled Poland at the time.
While she changed her first name to Marie and spent her career in Paris, she held onto her love of Poland all her life. Her life also was a tragic love story.
Her soulmate and lab-partner, the physicist Pierre Curie, died in an accident in 1906, leaving her a widow with two young daughters to raise and alone to continue the research to which Marie and Pierre were such a devoted team.
Marie’s career was affected by attitudes and practices in academia that discriminated against women.
Also, a strain of xenophobia in France led Eve to note that the French press denigrated her foreign-born mother when she was nominated for French honors but proudly claimed her when she brought international awards home to France.
Marie Curie was quiet, moderate, obsessive about her scientific work, and unfazed by fame. She wanted science to advance so it could aid humanity.
She volunteered during World War I, taking mobile x-ray units into battlefield locations so that field surgeons could see exactly where bullets were lodged in the bodies of wounded soldiers. Exposure to x-rays may also have contributed to her poor health and death.
Pre-registration for the book discussion is required through Eventbrite (https://bit.ly/3uCeHNz). Register for this one event or both the remaining book discussions at once.
The final character to be featured in this virtual series is Annie Oakley on April 28, beginning at 7 p.m.
Other characters portrayed in the Ashland Chautauqua live summer event will be Lizzie Borden, Malcolm X, and Mary Surratt. The event’s theme is “The Famous and Infamous” and will be held July 12 to 16, 2022.
Ashland Chautauqua’s virtual book discussion series is supported through the generosity of the Ohio Arts Council, Ohio Humanities, Explore Ashland, Peace Lutheran Church, and WebDev Works, LLC.
Donations to Ashland Chautauqua are always welcome and can be made online or by check. Full information is available on our website (ashlandchautauqua.org/support.php).
