In December of 1901, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm by the Nobel Foundation. The awards were intended for the betterment of mankind, although the source of the funding originated in the manufacture and sale of war materiel. The following is the story of how these prestigious awards came into being.
Alfred Nobel: In 1833 Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden. A few years later his family moved to Russia where his father was in the business of manufacturing machine tools and explosives. Although attending school for only 18 months, he became fluent in English, French, German, and Russian as well as Swedish. As his father’s business prospered, Alfred was sent to learn from private tutors where he came proficient in languages as well as chemistry. When the Crimean War ended in 1856, the family business slumped as their armaments designed for the Russia’s military were no longer needed. Nobel’s father then turned the business over to Alfred’s older brother, who managed to turn it around, but the remainder of the family returned to Sweden. Alfred’s studies then focused on developing safer explosives particularly nitroglycerin. In 1863 he developed a detonator, and two years later, a blasting cap both of which greatly improved the management of the unstable nitroglycerin. In 1867 he developed dynamite by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr, a form of diatomaceous earth. The results made a safe explosive that was much more powerful than gunpowder, and earned him a massive fortune.
Tragedy Occurs: In the early years of Nobel’s work with nitroglycerin, he maintained the preparation process in a shed at the family factory in a section of Stockholm. In September, 1864, the shed exploded killing five people including Alfred’s younger brother. Alfred then founded his own company and moved the plant away from the family’s business to the outskirts of Stockholm enabling him to continue developing explosives in a more isolated area. In addition to dynamite, Nobel invented gelignite, a blasting gel more powerful than dynamite, and a smokeless propellant named ballistite. His intentions were for his products to be used in mining, construction, and other building activities rather than war, but their value to the changing landscape of war in Europe in the late 19th century contributed greatly to his vast fortune. At the time of his death in 1896, he had 355 patents and more than 90 armaments factories.
The Mistaken Obituary: In 1888, Nobel’s brother Ludvig died of a heart attack in Cannes, France. Alfred lived in Paris at the time, and a French newspaper reported that it was not Ludwig, but Alfred who had died. Further, the newspaper went on to label Alfred as a “merchant of death” who had made a massive fortune by “finding better ways to kill more people faster than ever before.” Alfred had the difficult and unpleasant experience of having to read this diatribe before the error was finally corrected. It was widely believed that reading the obituary moved Nobel to create the Nobel Prize owing to a crisis of conscience. The truth in this matter is that no researcher has been able to find an original copy of the erroneous newspaper obituary, leading many to dismiss the story as altogether false. It was accepted by other historians as being at least one of perhaps several factors that lead to his great philanthropy.
Relationships: Nobel was never married, but did carry on with several relationships. One was with Bertha Kinsky whom he hired to be his secretary and household supervisor. After a time, however, Kinsky married her previous lover, Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Even then the two maintained a regular correspondence, as Suttner became a peace activist and often solicited donations from Nobel to support her group activities. The letters showed that Nobel had some contradictory feelings about his life’s work—condemning war on the one hand while profiting from it on the other. It was his hope that his “factories may well put an end to war before your congresses (do),” he wrote. “For in the day that two armies are capable of destroying each other in a second, all civilized nations will surely recoil before war to dismiss their troops.” Author Fredrik S. Heffermehl points out that Suttner “had managed to convince Nobel to ‘do something’ for the peace movement.” Many historians credit Bertha von Suttner as having influenced Nobel in establishing the Peace Prize in his will.
The Will: In addition to his armament factories Nobel, along with his brothers, was a successful investor in the oil fields of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. He wrote several wills in his lifetime, but the last one he signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris donated 94% of his fortune to a fund with the earnings specifically to be “annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” At the time of his death, his fortune valued approximately $265 million in today’s currency. As of 2007, these same assets, minus the prizes distributed and the cost of maintaining the foundation and fund were worth approximately $560 million.
The Prizes: In addition to the Peace Prize, the Nobel Foundation awards prizes in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. In 1969 another prize was added for Economics Sciences. This prize was funded by the Swedish National Bank, but is administered by the Nobel Foundation. This year’s prizes will amount to about $1,400,000 each, and they can be awarded to up to three individuals. The Peace Prize may be awarded to organizations that are made up of more than three individuals. The prizes are not awarded posthumously, but may be distributed post mortem to individuals who are awarded the prize, but die before receiving it. In addition to the prize money, the winners also receive a gold medal and a diploma. The winners are determined by: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for physics, chemistry, and economic science; the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for physiology/medicine; the Swedish Academy for literature; and the Norwegian Nobel Committee for peace. Although the awards were to be made for achievements “during the preceding year,” the selection committees have used the premise that the achievements be made in current times and not strictly within the preceding year.
Other Interesting Facts: Mohandas Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize. After being nominated for the fifth time in 1948, Gandhi was assassinated. The Nobel Committee determined that Gandhi left no credible heirs, so without precedent it decided to omit the award for that year in honor of his overall achievements towards peace.
In 1973 Communist Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for bringing peace to Vietnam. However, Tho declined his share of the prize owing to his view that a true peace had not been achieved.
Russian author Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize in 1958, but was pressured by Soviet officials not to accept it. The Nobel Foundation would not vacate the prize nor would it remove Pasternak’s name from the list of awardees. After the end of the Cold War in 1989, Pasternak’s son Yevgeny accepted the award on behalf of his father.
In 1903 Marie and Pierre Curie were the first husband/wife team to be awarded the Nobel Physics Prize, and at the same time Marie became the first female winner. Marie was awarded another Nobel Prize by herself in 1911, and their daughter Irene and her husband Frederic Joliot were awarded the Nobel Chemistry Prize in 1935. In 1965 Marie and Pierre’s son-in-law, Henry Labouisse, was the executive director of UNICEF when that organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. All were connected to the same family tree.
In 1922 Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Physics Prize, but owing to a divorce settlement his ex-wife received the money and not him.
Conclusions: To this day, the Nobel Prizes have been widely considered to be the most prestigious awards in the world for their respective fields. It is somewhat ironic and perhaps controversial that the capital provided by Alfred Nobel was earned from the development of deadly explosive weapons and devices that was pioneered by him. Although he was considered a peace-loving person, he may have reflected on how much death and destruction his discoveries had made when he decided to leave most of his fortune for philanthropic and peaceful purposes. Whatever his criteria was for this decision, he kept it to himself. It’s another mystery that we’ll never know the reason for.
Sources: History.com, This Day in History, December 10, 1901, First Nobel Prizes Awarded.
History.com, Did a Premature Obituary Inspire the Nobel Prize? By Evan Andrews, July 23, 2020.
History.com, 6 Things You May Not Know About the Nobel Prizes, By Barbara Maranzani, February 8, 2019.
Wikipedia, Nobel Prize.
Wikipedia, Alfred Nobel.