Happy Mother's Day from ESVA!

Photos of the Month — May 2017

We’re spending some time this May leading up to Mother’s Day reflecting and remembering physicists who were mothers and women who raised some of the most well-known scientists in history. Some women, such as Marie Curie, whose daughter Irène Joliot-Curie was a Nobel Prize winning chemist, were both!

Featured among this month’s photos are snapshots of both Marie Curie and Irène Joliot-Curie working in a lab, Maria Mayer and her daughter Marianne, and Albert Einstein’s mother, Pauline Einstein, née Koch. To browse more pictures of mothers from our archives, search for “Mother” using the quick search box on our site.

  • Marie Curie (right) with daughter and chemist Irène Joliot-Curie working in the lab.

    Marie Curie (right) with daughter and chemist Irène Joliot-Curie working in the lab.

  • Dorothy Mallett, mother of Ronald Mallett, with her husband Boyd and two sons Ronald (left) and Jason (right) in a park in 1948.

    Dorothy Mallett, mother of Ronald Mallett, with her husband Boyd and two sons Ronald (left) and Jason (right) in a park in 1948. 

  • Maria Goeppert-Mayer with her daughter, Marianne in the summer of 1935.

    Maria Goeppert-Mayer with her daughter, Marianne in the summer of 1935.

  • Ellen Adler Bohr sitting with her son, Niels Bohr, in 1902.

    Ellen Adler Bohr sitting with her son, Niels Bohr, in 1902.

  • Portrait of Pauline Einstein, née Koch, Albert Einstein’s mother

    Pauline Einstein, née Koch, Albert Einstein’s mother.

  • Henrietta Swan Leavitt, sometimes known as the mother of physical cosmology, with fellow astronomer Annie Jump Cannon at Harvard College Observatory.

    Henrietta Swan Leavitt, sometimes known as the mother of physical cosmology, with fellow astronomer Annie Jump Cannon at Harvard College Observatory.