Nonlinear Careers of Scientists through History

For some, the path to a career in science can be straightforward: good grades in high school science classes lead to a college degree in science, which leads to work in science. Indeed, many acclaimed scientists have taken a similar route. But this isn’t the only option. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that whether by necessity or because of personal interests, these four prominent scientists didn’t always have science as their primary focus or source of income. Though we can’t say for sure how things might have been different if they had only pursued science, it’s clear that their varied careers gave them flexibility and life experience that helped make their big scientific contributions possible.

Though Marie Curie (1867–1934) is best known as a French scientist, she was born in Warsaw as a Polish national named Maria Skłodowska. Both of her parents were teachers and at first did well for themselves, but by the time she was a teenager, her family’s economic situation was in a precarious place. Her mother died when she was 10, and her father’s career suffered because his pro-Polish sentiments clashed with the ideology of the Russian Empire, which was in control of Poland at the time. He was fired multiple times and demoted to progressively worse positions so that there wasn’t much money to put toward Curie and her siblings’ higher education.

Not to be discouraged, she and her older sister, Bronya, made an agreement: each would work to support the other’s educational expenses. At the age of 17, Curie became a private tutor to pay for Bronya’s tuition at a medical school in Paris. After two years, she found a better-paying position as a governess for the children of a beet-sugar factory agriculturalist in a village north of Warsaw. In addition to his children, she was allowed to teach the uneducated village children, and her employer even encouraged his eldest daughter to join her as a teacher. This was quite progressive of Curie’s employer, as this activity was seen by Russian authorities as treasonous and if discovered, was punishable by imprisonment or deportation to Siberia. She eventually fell in love with the adult son of her employer, who refused to allow an engagement. Despite the heartbreak, Curie completed her three-year term as governess in order to honor her commitment to fund her sister’s education. She filled empty hours with self-study and was also able to study with a chemist at the beet factory. Curie’s father and sister were eventually able to set aside money for her studies, and in the fall of 1891, at the age of 23, she enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris as Marie.

It may be comforting to know that Albert Einstein (1879–1955) had struggles as a youth—struggles that might seem significant but that clearly did not deter his contributions to science. Like Marie Curie, he had political trouble: he renounced his German citizenship and became a Swiss citizen in order to avoid conscription, and he later moved to the United States and became an American citizen to avoid persecution as a Jew in Europe during Hitler’s regime. He did well in school but dropped out of high school, as he was “disgusted by rote learning and martinet teachers,” and he later failed his entrance exams to the Swiss Institute of Technology. Although Einstein successfully graduated from a teaching college, he was passed over for academic positions and was forced to survive as a temporary teacher in near poverty.

Happily, he had connections that got him a better job in the Swiss Patent Office. The comfort and stability of the job, along with the mildly stimulating task of examining mechanical patents, allowed Einstein the mental space to contemplate problems in physics. He even purportedly picked up his violin while at work to help him think. During this period of his life, he met regularly with friends, especially Swiss engineer Michele Besso, to read and discuss science and philosophy. While employed at the patent office, he started thinking heavily about gravity (ha!), and these musings eventually became his theory of relativity. He successfully submitted his doctoral thesis to the University of Zurich while working at the patent office, and after seven years as a patent examiner, in 1909 he quit his patent post and was appointed associate professor of physics at the University of Zurich. Though he was no longer a full-time patent man, patents continued to play a role in Einstein’s life; he prepared court opinions on patent disputes from 1915 to 1925, and he applied for patents for refrigerators and hearing aids he designed in the late 1920s.

Maria Mitchell (1818–1889) was the first American scientist to discover a comet. Born on Massachusetts’ Nantucket Island to a library worker mother and an amateur astronomer father, she adopted both pursuits in her own life. Her parents ensured that she got a good education, which was not always a guarantee for girls at the time. Her father personally undertook her instruction in astronomy, mathematics, surveying, and navigation. At the age of 16, she opened a math and science school for girls. In 1836 Mitchell became the first librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum, the island’s members-only library (it became a public library in 1900 and is still the primary library on Nantucket to this day).

In August 1841, during her tenure as librarian, the Atheneum hosted Nantucket’s first antislavery convention, a three-day event that featured Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison as speakers.

Similarly to Marie Curie and Albert Einstein, Mitchell’s job as a librarian afforded her the opportunity to think about science and much more. During her 20 years as a librarian, she spent many hours each day reading, with nights reserved for time at the nearby observatory that her father built. Though she became famous for her comet discovery, Mitchell was trailblazing in many other ways. She was likely one of the first professional women to be employed by the US government due to her work on the US Coastal Survey; she was a founder of the American Association for the Advancement of Women; she was involved with antislavery and suffrage movements; and she frequently published her scientific work in journals that usually published only men’s research. Mitchell became the first female professor of astronomy at Vassar College in 1865, specializing in the surfaces of Jupiter and Saturn. Standing against social norms, she made sure her female students came out at night to use the telescopes, and many of these female students were also later published
in scientific journals.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Morse code? Samuel Morse (1791–1872), of Morse code and telegraph invention fame, supported his college studies in religious philosophy, mathematics, and science at Yale by painting. After graduation, he decided to pursue painting full time, and in 1811 he went to London to study at the Royal Academy of Art. In 1815 he returned to the United States with the intention of becoming a professional artist. Despite his talent and moderate success, he wasn’t able to establish the kind of prestige he hoped for, and he worked mostly as an itinerant portraitist. In 1824 he had a breakthrough when he won the commission from the City of New York for a portrait of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. The Marquis de Lafayette (1825) commemorates the French war hero’s role in the American Revolutionary War. Riding on the success of this portrait, Morse cofounded the National Academy of Design and afterward continued to work as an artist and professor of painting and sculpture at the University of the City of New York.

Morse’s interest in both the arts and sciences influenced his knack for invention. In 1822 he invented a marble-cutting machine for sculpture construction. Sadly, while on tour for The Marquis de Lafayette, he learned of his wife’s sudden death days after it happened. This inspired him to find new ways of speeding up communication, and he started tinkering with electrical circuits. Eventually, he filed patents for his version of the telegraph in 1837 and started developing Morse code in 1838.

References

• “About Maria Mitchell | Maria Mitchell Association,” n.d. mariamitchell.org/about-maria-mitchell .
• “Albert Einstein: Image and Impact,” n.d. history.aip.org/exhibits/einstein/inbrief.htm .
• Samuel F.B. Morse, “Artist Info,” n.d. nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1737.html .
• “Biography: Maria Mitchell,” n.d. womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/maria-mitchell .
• Deutsches Patent - Und Markenamt. “DPMA | Albert Einstein,” March 7, 2024. dpma.de/english/our_office/publications/milestones/greatinventors/einstein .
• González, Jennifer. “From Art to Invention – Exploring the Contributions of Samuel F. B. Morse | in Custodia Legis.” The Library of Congress, November 15, 2022. blogs.loc.gov/law/2022/11/from-art-to-invention-exploring-the-contributions-of-samuel-f-b-morse .
• Holton, Gerald. “The Migration of Physicists to the United States.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 40, no. 4 (April 1984): 18.
• “Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity,” n.d. history.aip.org/exhibits/curie/polgirl2.htm .
• “Nantucket Atheneum (US National Park Service),” n.d. nps.gov/places/nantucket-atheneum.htm .
• “The Nobel Prize | Women Who Changed Science | Marie Curie,” n.d. nobelprize.org/womenwhochangedscience/stories/marie-curie .