The American gram of radium

In May 1920 the American journalist Marie Mattingly Meloney, known as Missy, interviewed Marie Curie in Paris and learned that the discoverer of radium had only about a gram of it for her research, when a single gram cost a fortune. Meloney launched the Marie Curie Radium Fund among American women and raised more than 100,000 dollars.

Marie Curie, who hated publicity, agreed to travel. She sailed with Irène and Ève on the Olympic on 4 May 1921. On 20 May, at the White House, President Warren G. Harding handed her the symbol of the gift: a small golden key to the lead-lined casket. The radium itself waited at the Bureau of Standards to be packed for Paris. She toured colleges and laboratories until her right arm was in a sling from handshakes, and spoke to students at Vassar about the beauty of pure science.

In 1929 American women gave again, and President Hoover handed her 50,000 dollars to buy radium for the new institute in Warsaw.