Woman Triumphant: The story of her struggles for freedom, education and political rights.: Dedicated to all noble-minded women by an appreciative member of the other sex.Cronau, Rudolf
History
Woman Triumphant: The story of her struggles for freedom, education and political rights.: Dedicated to all noble-minded women by an appreciative member of the other sex.
Cronau, Rudolf
Women -- History
In the history of chemistry the name of =Marie Curie= will be forever
connected with the wonderful discovery of Radium and Radio-activity.
Born on November 7, 1867, at Warsaw as Marja Sklodowska she came to
Paris in 1888 and studied at the Faculté des Sciences. In 1895 she
married Professor Pierre Curie and joined him in his chemical
investigations. It was in 1898 that she published a most valuable work
on metals in solution. Her investigations in collaboration with her
husband led to the discovery of two new bodies: Polonium and Radium,
which are found in certain minerals, especially in pitch blende in a
state of extreme solution; as a matter of fact, to the extent only of a
few decigrammes to the ton of mineral for Radium, and much less in the
case of Polonium. The separation of these elements presented extreme
difficulties.
Further investigations led to the observation of most interesting
phenomena in connection with these bodies—chemical effects, luminous
effects, effects of heating, etc. New realms of science were
disclosed—the science of Radio-active phenomena. In recognition of these
discoveries in 1903 the Nobel Prize was awarded to Professor Curie and
his wife. And when Mrs. Curie, after the tragic death of her husband,
accomplished the “isolation” of Radium and also determined its atomic
weight, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for a second time in 1911. At
present Mrs. Curie is Director of the Physico-Chemical Department of the
University of Paris.
For valuable research work in bacteriology =Dr. Rhoda Erdmann=, a former
assistant of the famous professor Robert Koch in Berlin, became most
favorably known. Having published several excellent treatises on the
amoeba and protozoa, she followed in 1913 a call to the
Sheffield-Institute of Yale University.
In the wide fields of archæology and ethnology likewise several women
have achieved remarkable results. Among those scientists who devoted
themselves to the study of archæology and the ancient history of America
the name of =Zelia Nuttall= is well known. She is the author of many
interesting essays on the relics left by the Aztecs, Toltecs, and Mayas.
Science is also indebted to her for the so-called “Codex Nuttall,” now
preserved in the Peabody-Museum at Cambridge, Mass.
Another noteworthy ethnologist was =Erminnie Adele Smith=, who, as
compiler of the famous Iroquois-English Dictionary, was distinguished by
being elected the first woman member of the New York Academy of Science.
=Alice Cunningham Fletcher= made most valuable investigations about the
religious and social conditions of several Indian tribes of the Far
West, especially of the Sioux, Omaha, and Pawnee Indians. Her very
exhaustive studies have been published in the Annual Reports of the
Bureau of American Ethnology.
The same reports contain highly interesting papers by =Matilda Cox
Stevenson= and =Tilly E. Stevenson= about the mythology, esoteric
societies and sociology of the Zuni Indians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account