MME CURIE ARRIVES IN AMERICA TO RECEIVE GRAM OF RADIUM
New York City (JFK+50) On May 11, 1921, Madame Marie Curie* arrived aboard the Olympic here in New York City accompanied by her two daughters.
According to the New York Tribune...
"the world's greatest woman scientist...came to America to receive a gram of the precious element which she found after long years of research."
Mme** Curie, who will be presented with a gram of radium*** next week by President Warren G. Harding, plans to use it to find a cure for cancer. The value of the gram of radium is $100,000.
Mme Curie is described in a front-page story in the New York Herald as
"a fragile, white-haired little woman dressed in black."
*Marie Salomea Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) was born in Warsaw, Poland & earned degrees in physics & chemistry at the University of Paris. MC became a professor in 1906 conducting research in radioactivity. She was the 1st woman to win the Nobel Prize & 1st person to win two (Physics 1903, Chemistry 1911). MC discovered polonium & radium.
**Mme. is the French abbreviation for Madame.
***Radium (Ra 223) is used in chemotherapy to stop growth of tumor cells by killing them, stopping them from dividing or spreading.
SOURCE
"Mme. Curie Arrives, Confident That Radium Is Cancer Cure," The New York Tribune, May 12, 1921, Chronicling America, Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/
