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| Swedish Inventor and Industrialist
He was passionate for literature, philosophy and poetry. Having had a fragile health since his childhood, he was also interested in physiology and medicine. Ironically, his main interest laid on social and peace-related issues, holding radical pacifist views for the century he lived in. "My home is where I work and I work everywhere". Alfred's career began in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the Nobels had settled after his father's company fell into bankruptcy in Sweden. In Russia, the Nobel family survived thanks to a small mechanical business owned by the father and a grocery store owned by the mother. Their luck was going to change however when Nobel's father, Immanuel, an engineer and inventor, convinced the Tzar of the importance of naval mines for the Russian army. With the Russian military as his client, his business took off and the Nobel brothers were given first class education by private teachers. By the age of 17, Alfred could speak Swedish, Russian, French, German and English. Young and introverted Alfred proved to be an exceptional pupil, fascinated by French culture, world literature, poetry, but also by chemistry and physics. Alfred left St. Petersburg in 1850 to go to study abroad and become a chemical engineer as his father. During a two year period Alfred Nobel visited Sweden, Germany, France and the United States. In Paris, Alfred met Ascanio Sobrero, an Italian chemist who had invented nitroglycerin, and started thinking on how this material could be used in construction work. Nobel invents dynamite and builds an industrial empire. In 1852 Alfred returned to Russia to work in the booming family business, but by the end of the Crimean war of 1853-1856 Nobel's father fell again into bankruptcy and Alfred moved back to Stockholm. By 1863, Alfred was investigating how to transform nitroglycerin into a technically useful explosive, when he finally discovered a paste which could be shaped into rods and inserted into drilling holes. In 1867 he patented his invention under the name of "dynamite". Dynamite became a revolutionary invention which speeded up the drilling of tunnels, the building of canals and many other forms of great construction works in the 19th century. In 1868, the year after the first patent for dynamite, Alfred Nobel and his father were awarded the Letterstedt Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The prize, which Alfred valued highly, was awarded for "important discoveries of practical value to humanity" and would give him an inspirational background to his own Nobel prizes. With a vast demand for dynamite worldwide, Alfred Nobel had to prove himself a very skillful businessman. Between 1865 and 1873 Alfred relocated his home, laboratory and center of his business to Krümmel, in Hamburg, Germany. Initially, the factory in Hamburg exported explosives to every country in Europe, America and to Australia, but over the years he would find factories and laboratories in some 90 different places in more than 20 countries around the world. Nobel
spent most of his life travelling, directing his business and working in his laboratories
in Stockholm and Karlskoga (Sweden), Hamburg (Germany), Ardeer (Scotland), Paris
and Sevran (France) and San Remo (Italy). His lifestyle was hectic and stressful,
which did not help the health problems he had been suffering since he was a young
boy. Literature was still one of Alfred's passions and he would often look for
peace and escape in books. He liked anything from philosophy to history, from
religion to science. He read Voltaire and Rousseau, the French philosophers of
the Enlightenment, the positivism of Comte and the theories of Darwin and Haeckel,
Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Newton, Von Humboldt… He had such a devotion
for literature that, at times when business was difficult, he considered abandoning
business and research and taking up writing for his livelihood. Alfred Nobel had always been fascinated with Paris, which was the center of international business and world culture at the time. In 1873, he decided to settle in the capital of France and befriended famous French writers such as Victor Hugo, Emile Zola and others. Victor Hugo described Nobel as "Europe's richest vagabond" and Nobel admired the idealism and the pacifism of Hugo, the author of "Les Misérables". On Hugo's birthday in 1885, Nobel sent him the following telegram: "Great Master, long may you live to charm the world and propagate your ideas about universal charity". In 1876 Alfred Nobel employed Austrian Countess Bertha von Suttner as his secretary. Countess Von Suttner would become the founder of the Austrian peace movement and the author of "Die Waffen nieder!" (Lay down Your Arms!, 1889). Alfred Nobel and Bertha von Suttner maintained a lifelong intellectual friendship which was solidly based on a shared a passion for world peace. Through the Countess, Nobel became a member of the Austrian Peace Association and partly funded it. He also followed the peace work in Europe and employed the former Turkish diplomat Aristarchi Bey to keep him updated on the activities of peace movements and new procedures of conflict resolution, like international courts of Justice. Nobel was however
sceptic about peace associations: "Good wishes alone will not ensure peace",
he said. Aware that his inventions could either be used for good or for evil,
he expressed many times his wish to produce a material or a machine which would
have such a devastating effect that war would become impossible. In 1891 he told
Countess von Suttner: "Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner
than your congresses: on the day that two armies can mutually annihilate each
other in a second, all civilised nations will surely recoil with horror and disband
their troops." While living in France in 1887, Nobel introduced another revolutionary invention called ballistite, an explosive for mining which was eventually applied to military ammunition. He offered first his invention to the French government but they declined his offer, so Nobel went to offer his product to the Italian government. The Italians did accept it and a large factory in Avigliana, Turin, was fitted for the production of ballistite in 1889. This deal was not received well in France and a defamatory press campaign against Nobel started. He was accused of espionage and "high treason against France", threatened with imprisonment, and forbidden to conduct experiments in France. Disappointed and bitter, Nobel left France in 1891 and settled in San Remo, Italy. San Remo would become the ground for several of Alfred Nobel's later inventions not completed during his lifetime but perfected by others afterwards, such as the development of varnishes, synthetic rubber and leather and artificial silk. He also resumed his writing with the socially critical novel "I ljusaste Afrika" (In Brightest Africa, 1861), where he sets out his political ideas, and with the draft of a novel, "Systrarna" (The Sisters, 1862), where he discusses faith and knowledge, and questions the divinity of Christ. In 1895 he produced the draft of a farcical satire, "The Patent Bacillus", based on the dogmatism and bureaucracy he experienced in England during his business there. The move to Italy was actually beneficial to Alfred's health. The Mediterranean climate of San Remo proved a relief to the health problems Alfred suffered during most of his life. However, he still kept his hectic lifestyle, managing his business and doing research, refusing to take his doctor's advice. On December 10, 1896, Alfred Nobel passed away at his home in San Remo. Long after his death, San Remo continues to maintain its ties with Alfred Nobel. Every 10th of December, large quantities of flowers are sent by San Remo to adorn the annual Nobel Prize Award Ceremony and Banquet in Stockholm. Villa Nobel is now used as center for cultural and scientific activities and as a museum. Although permanently based in Italy, Nobel had established his Swedish home and research center at the Björkborn Manor, in Bofors, central Sweden. He missed his native country, but he was aware his fragile health would not be able to survive a cold Swedish winter. Nowadays, The Björkborn Manor contains Nobel's private library of over 1500 volumes, mostly fiction in the original language, works by the great writers of the 19th century, but also the classics and works by philosophers, theologians, historians and other scientists. The Nobel Prize In 1895, Alfred Nobel spent two months in Paris organizing how his fortune should be used. His famous will, dated November 27, 1895 was signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, in the presence of four Swedish witnesses. Alfred Nobel's will was short and straight. After listing bequests to relatives and other people close to him, he declared that his entire remaining estate should be used give prizes to those who have done their best for humanity in the field of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. His
testament created a great international sensation throughout the world. It was
unusual at that time to donate large sums of money for scientific and charitable
purposes, and also internationally, disregarding nationalities of national borders.
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