The Nobel Foundation, for instance, notes that he may have first gotten the idea for the science prizes in 1868, when he received an award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for “important inventions for the practical use of mankind.” Nobel was also a voracious reader who spoke five languages and dabbled in writing plays and poems, and this may have sparked his interest in offering a prize in literature.Īs for the peace prize, many credit its development to Nobel’s long friendship with Bertha von Suttner, an Austrian countess remembered for writing an anti-war novel called “Lay Down Your Arms.” The two first met in 1876, when Nobel-a lifelong bachelor-placed an ad in a newspaper for a “lady of mature age” to be his secretary and the supervisor of his household. Some now dismiss the story as a myth, while others argue that it was only one of many factors that helped shape the inventor’s decision. The newspaper incident is often cited as the driving force behind Nobel’s philanthropy, but historians have yet to find an original copy of the “Merchant of Death” obituary. According to biographer Kenne Fant, Nobel “became so obsessed with the posthumous reputation that he rewrote his last will, bequeathing most of his fortune to a cause upon which no future obituary writer would be able to cast aspersions.” The incident may have brought on a crisis of conscience and led him to reevaluate his career. Thanks to poor reporting, at least one French newspaper believed that it was Alfred who had perished, and it proceeded to write a scathing obituary that branded him a “merchant of death” who had grown rich by developing new ways to “mutilate and kill.” The error was later corrected, but not before Alfred had the unpleasant experience of reading his own death notice. In 1888, Nobel’s brother Ludvig had died in France from a heart attack. What persuaded the “dynamite king” to devote his fortune to charity? Nobel never spoke publicly about the motivations behind the pledge, but many believe it was inspired by an earlier case of mistaken identity. The testament of Alfred Nobel is displayed at the Nobel Museum in the Old Town of Stockholm. READ MORE: 6 Things You May Not Know About the Nobel Prizes By the time he wrote his will, Nobel was hugely wealthy and owned nearly 100 factories that made explosives and munitions. In 1867, he had invented dynamite, which was widely used both in construction and in warfare. Among his 355 patents were designs for nitroglycerin detonators, blasting caps and a smokeless gunpowder called ballistite. Alfred, meanwhile, was famous for developing new types of explosives. Falnes later noted, his family name was “associated not with the arts of peace but with the arts of war.” Nobel’s father Immanuel was an engineer who had run armaments factories and built underwater mines for Russia during the Crimean War. While Nobel’s award fund would eventually become famous, there’s no denying that he was an unlikely source for a peace prize. The fifth award was designated for “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.” Three were for the greatest discoveries or inventions in the fields of physics, chemistry and medicine, while a fourth was devoted to the author of the “most outstanding work” of literature. In fewer than 1,000 handwritten words, Nobel outlined a plan to devote the vast majority of his estate-worth around $265 million today-to a series of prizes for “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” Nobel listed five awards in his will (a sixth, for economics, was added in 1968). The 62-year-old industrialist had previously mused about using some of his personal fortune to support the work of scientists and inventors, but the document he produced described a project far more ambitious than anyone could have imagined. On November 27, 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament at Paris’ Swedish-Norwegian Club.
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