ALFRED NOBEL

Listen Alfred Nobel biography Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.

Alfred Nobel is famous for the annual prizes in science, literature, and peace awarded in his name.

Although he was born into poverty, his family members were creative and entrepreneurial; they worked hard and became successful. Alfred was the scientist of the family, inventing and manufacturing dynamite, the blasting cap, gelignite, and ballistite. He grew fantastically rich on the proceeds of his explosives businesses.

In his last will and testament, he bequeathed over ninety percent of his fortune to fund the Nobel Prizes.

Beginnings

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born in Sweden’s capital city, Stockholm, on October 21, 1833.

His father was Immanuel Nobel, a self-made engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur who had been formally schooled only to the age of 14. His mother was Andriette Ahlsell, an accountant’s daughter.

Although at first Immanuel Nobel’s business prospered, by the time Alfred was born, his father was bankrupt. A series of business misfortunes followed by the family home burning to the ground left the family penniless.

Alfred was their fourth-born child and barely survived his first few days. He suffered ill-health for most of his life. Alfred’s mother and her sickly son formed a strong bond through the years of constant care she gave him during his frequent illnesses.

When Alfred was four years old, his father left Sweden for Finland where he had been offered business opportunities; it was a long time before he sent any money home. Alfred’s grandfather gave Alfred’s mother money to start a tiny grocery store in which she worked from first thing in the morning to last thing at night for a small profit.

Alfred began school at age seven – a school for impoverished children called Jacob’s Parish Apologist School. The school’s pupils and teachers were tough; there were frequent fights in the playground and most pupils were beaten by their teachers every day for any small mistakes in their schoolwork.

Alfred did well in his schoolwork, which made his absent father proud.

Russia

Immanuel, Alfred’s father, had also been doing well, forming a company producing arms for Russia’s military. Now wealthy, and the owner of a foundry and a factory, he sent for his family to join him in Russia in the fall of 1842. Alfred was age nine when he sailed for Russia’s capital Saint Petersburg. It took him just a year to learn Russian fluently.

Instead of going to school, the Nobel children were taught by private tutors. Immanuel was a strong advocate of the Protestant work ethic. He taught his children that they could shape their own future prosperity with hard work and dedication. They were tutored and ordered to work for long hours every day.

Some children would have found this oppressive, but Alfred prospered. He loved learning, and added English, French, and German to the languages he could speak fluently. His tutors were of the highest quality – he was taught chemistry, his favorite subject, by university professors.

Meanwhile, Immanuel’s business was growing fast and he was making a wide and growing range of arms.

European and US Tour

At about the age of 16, Alfred considered becoming a writer.

After mastering English, he had become a big fan of Shakespeare’s plays and had started writing poetry influenced by Percy Shelley. Alfred’s father appreciated the importance of good literature, but he did not want his son to follow this path.

He offered Alfred the opportunity to travel around Europe and the USA if he abandoned his literary aspirations and concentrated on working in the family’s prospering industrial and arms businesses.

Alfred agreed. On his tour he spent time in places of business interest – laboratories and factories – and spent extended amounts of time in Paris and New York. When, age 19, he returned to Russia in 1852, he worked in the family business: by now it had about 1,000 employees.