Joliot-Curie Family Timeline

Pierre Curie did not attend any school. His mother taught him to read and write. His older brother Jacques and his father took over his education. At the age of 14, he was entrusted to a mathematics teacher, Alexandre Bazille, who also introduced him to Latin, necessary for the baccalaureate, which he obtained in 1875.

In 1876, Maria’s older sister, Sophia, was taken by typhus. Her mother, suffering from tuberculosis, passed away two years later. The secondary school chosen for Maria taught in Polish, even though it was required to use Russian. During inspection visits, they had to pretend, and it was Maria, the best student, who was entrusted with this role.

Marie was initially welcomed by her sister and brother-in-law in the northern part of Paris, in a warm atmosphere bringing together Polish students. The time spent traveling to the Sorbonne caused her to lose a lot of time, so she decided to rent a student room closer to the university.

In 1894, Gabriel Lippmann, her mentor at the Sorbonne, secured a research contract for her on the magnetism of steels at the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry (SEIN).

The civil marriage took place on July 26, 1895, at the town hall in Sceaux, a suburb south of Paris. Marie’s father and sisters, who were present, met Pierre’s family. Marie wore a dark blue dress, which could later be used in the laboratory. The newlyweds received two bicycles as a wedding gift, which they immediately took on their holiday.

In that same year, 1898, the young physicist Ernest Rutherford also became interested in uranic rays. He distinguished two types of radiation, which he would later call Alpha and Beta in 1902.

After the discovery of radium, the topic attracted an increasing number of physicists and chemists. Becquerel took an interest in it again. The Curies knew that radium was present only in extremely small quantities in the substances they had prepared. The measurement of the atomic mass of radium, which Marie aimed for her thesis, required separating a pure radium salt. The Curies were heavily handicapped by a lack of resources to achieve this goal.

Frédéric’s father, Henri Joliot, born in Moselle, a former Communard, returned from his exile in Belgium to marry Emilie Roederer, who came from an Alsatian, Protestant, and liberal family. A wealthy merchant, he was primarily a hunter and fisherman, and a recognized composer of music for the hunting horn.

A chair in physics was created at the Sorbonne for Pierre Curie. Marie Curie was appointed as the head of laboratory work. Pierre Curie was elected to the Academy of Sciences. The fame that accompanied the Nobel Prize became overwhelming.

Pierre’s health, in particular, deteriorated. They rested in the Chevreuse Valley. The Curies were unable to attend the award ceremony.

In 1915, Marie and Irène Curie, along with their driver, traveled by car to Hogstad in Flanders, where King Albert had retreated due to the Belgian invasion. They stayed there for some time to organize the radiology service.

The demand for personnel skilled in operating radiological equipment was immense. The training programs for radiological nurses, led by Marie Curie at the Radium Institute, enabled the training of 150 radiology technicians. Marie Curie handled the theoretical courses, while Irène Curie, Suzanne Weil, and particularly Marthe Klein managed the practical training.

In 1920, Marie Curie eventually agreed to meet with an American journalist. To her surprise, Marie Meloney, known as Missy, did not inquire about her private life but instead asked many questions about her life in the laboratory and the challenges it faced in a country devastated by war. Marie Curie was won over. This led to an in-depth conversation and Missy’s proposal to launch a subscription among American women to purchase a gram of radium.

Missy sparked a passionate interest among American women in radium as a treatment for cancer. The following year, Marie Curie traveled to the United States with her daughters and symbolically received the gram of radium from the President at the White House.

The planned tour was exhausting. She had Irène replace her for some university talks, but she regained all her energy to visit the mines and factories in Pittsburgh.

The collaboration between the two laboratories of the Institut du Radium—Marie Curie’s laboratory focusing on the chemistry and physics of radiation, and Claudius Regaud’s laboratory studying the impact of radiation on biological systems—is close. Curie’s laboratory prepares the radon vials essential for Regaud’s research. Both laboratories receive numerous grants and donations.

The establishment of the Curie Foundation in May 1921 aimed to use these donations for new developments. Marie Curie was elected to the Academy of Medicine in 1922.

Marie Curie entrusted the training of the young preparator, Frédéric Joliot, to Irène Curie, who was responsible for his education in radioactivity. Initially, Frédéric Joliot resented being directed by a woman, especially one who was unyielding, but his attitude quickly changed. In an interview, he would later express, “I discovered in this young woman a person of poetry.” A year later, he went on vacation with Irène Curie and their friends, and they soon became engaged.

Life is not just about the laboratory. Marie travels to Poland several times and spends part of the summer in the small house she had built in Cavalaire. The Joliots go on winter vacations for skiing, and especially spend the summer at the Arcouest in the house built in 1926. Frédéric Joliot integrates well into the social circle, particularly with Jean Perrin. He distinguishes himself with the use of a boat for fishing, the Marsouin.

Irène and Frédéric published some results together as early as 1928, and then worked as a team until 1935. After working on a minor topic, they began experiments using a similar method to learn more about the mysterious ‘penetrating’ radiation discovered in 1931 by the Germans Walter Bothe and Herbert Becker. In January 1932, they discovered that this radiation, emitted by nuclear reaction on boron, ejects high-speed protons from hydrogenous substances. This experiment paved the way for James Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron.

Despite their growing concerns about the future, the Joliot-Curies change their lifestyle as little as possible. Alongside their work in the laboratory, cultural and political engagements, and for Irène, periods of rest often due to developing tuberculosis, they maintain their habits with friends on Sundays, skiing trips, and stays at Arcouest.

From 1935, Frédéric Joliot prioritizes the construction of accelerators and the production of artificial radioisotopes. He utilizes the facilities of C.G.E in Ivry before acquiring them through CNRS. He aims to develop in this “atomic synthesis laboratory” research in radiobiology using radioactive tracers. Appointed to the Collège de France, he begins the construction of a cyclotron, a copy of the model for which Ernest Lawrence had sent him the plans.

Frédéric finds the laboratory occupied by the Germans. The head of the German team is Wolfgang Gentner, whom Joliot knows well from Gentner’s time at the Radium Institute. Their friendship has endured, and Gentner’s anti-Nazi views are beyond doubt. This leads to a secret meeting where the conditions, acceptable to Joliot, are defined, allowing the reopening of the laboratory by the occupying authorities.

Paul Langevin’s arrest in November 1940 and his incarceration in the Santé prison is a shock to the academic community. Frédéric Joliot closes the laboratory in protest and joins the group of the Free University created by associates of the Communist Party. This marks his entry into the resistance.

In 1941, he becomes a leader of the National Front for the Liberation of France. He is arrested twice and released after interventions from Gentner. Vacation plans in Brittany or the mountains are no longer possible. Frédéric enjoys fishing near the Soisy-sur-Seine dam, which combines usefulness with pleasure.

In June 1943, Frédéric Joliot was elected to the Academy of Sciences and, in November, to the Academy of Medicine. This was a blow to Vichy. In several public lectures, he spoke about the prospects for France’s future scientific recovery. He established connections with resistant industrialists and created a study syndicate. In January 1944, he went underground, and Irène and the children went to Switzerland. In August 1944, he participated in the Parisian uprising.

Frédéric Joliot had several objectives when he was appointed Director of the CNRS: to create a more collegial management structure, to give the CNRS a coordinating role for research across various ministries, and to secure the resources needed to revive scientific research.

From September 1944 and throughout the following year, Frédéric Joliot and Raoul Dautry, working with the services of the provisional government, prepared the creation of an organization dedicated to the development of atomic energy in France. The ordinance issued by General de Gaulle on October 18, 1945, established the Commissariat for Atomic Energy. Appointments to the new organization would take place in early 1946.

In the summer of 1945, the Joliots return to Arcouest. The land around their house has not yet been cleared of mines, and the Perrins’ house is also uninhabitable. The younger members of the family camp with friends, while the parents stay in a hotel. Charles Seignobos, known as “the captain,” has passed away at Arcouest, and the Germans have destroyed his house. Jean Perrin also died in the United States in 1942. The region saw many resistance activities, and Frédéric Joliot is called upon for various initiatives. Navigation options are still limited; only their rowing and sailing boat is available that year, along with canoes sent back from the Paris region.

Frédéric Joliot, appointed High Commissioner, was responsible for the scientific program of the CEA with a scientific committee composed of Francis Perrin, Irène Joliot-Curie, Pierre Auger, and Lew Kowarski. The administrator, Raoul Dautry, handled administrative and budgetary matters. The industry was largely destroyed, and the construction of Zoé benefited from valuable, albeit unauthorized, access to American surplus materials.

From June 1946 to 1947, the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission organized a series of meetings involving both political leaders and experts to reach a consensus on the management of nuclear issues, both military and civilian. Frédéric Joliot and Pierre Auger attended as experts. In response to the plan proposed by the United States, which was highly intrusive regarding future civilian applications and assumed the continued monopoly of the atomic bomb, the Soviets put forward counter-proposals.

The meetings were a failure. “There were valid arguments in the proposals from both sides. If we had been allowed to work, as scientists, we would have found solutions,” wrote Frédéric Joliot to his wife.

Irène Joliot-Curie gets involved in organizations stemming from the resistance, including the Union of French Women and the International Democratic Federation of Women. She speaks out on women’s rights, including the right to vote, peace, and the independence of Indochina. She travels to the United States in March 1948 to support the Spanish Republicans and participates in Wroclaw, Poland, at the International Congress of Intellectuals for Peace, accompanied by her aunt Helena Slazay.

Irène Joliot-Curie has a valid visa when she arrives in New York. However, she is detained at Ellis Island as an undesirable person. Protests and actions by the Committee that invited her for lectures in support of the Spanish Republicans lead to the cancellation of the decision. Nevertheless, the violently anti-communist climate results in virulent articles.

The Committee is chaired by Albert Einstein and directed by Dr. Edward Barski, an anti-fascist physician. Irène Joliot-Curie successfully completes her lecture tour. It is also an opportunity for her to see Einstein again.

Before the Congress of the Communist Party, Frédéric Joliot’s stance against the possibility of a war with the Soviet Union serves as a pretext for his dismissal from the CEA. This dismissal was publicly desired by the United States. Irène Joliot-Curie’s commission as High Commissioner will not be renewed the following year.

The Joliot-Curies embark on a “desert crossing.” Their laboratories lose funding, hindering their modernization projects, particularly the cyclotron, during a period when scientific research has otherwise fallen out of priority. His election as president of the nuclear and particle physics section of the CNRS provides Frédéric Joliot with a platform to advocate for a revival of scientific research in France.

In July 1954, an international congress on “the role of the electronic shell in radioactive phenomena” takes place at the Institute of Radium under the patronage of the Joliot-Curies and Louis de Broglie. American and Soviet physicists meet there, having had no contact until then. In October 1954, the twentieth anniversary of artificial radioactivity is celebrated in the presence of the ministers of national education and research.

Still exhausted, Irène Joliot-Curie returned from Courchevel to be hospitalized at the Curie Hospital, where she was diagnosed with leukemia. She passed away on March 17, 1956. A national funeral, organized by the government, took place at the Sorbonne. The succession of Irène Joliot-Curie to the chair of physics and radioactivity was urgent. An agreement was reached with the Collège de France for Frédéric Joliot to succeed her.