Herstory: Marguerite Perey & Marie Curie

"For a decade, Perey's day-to-day duties consisted largely of a curious ritual: sifting out pure actinium from all the other components of uranium ore so Curie could study its decay." Take a peek into the life of the 29-year-old Marguerite Perey, who received a letter informing her that she'd be the lab assistant to the one and only Marie Curie and her husband Pierre. Marguerite would later go on to discover an element of her own—just as the Curies had discovered radium and polonium—Marguerite claim to fame? Francium. Dive into the 100-year-old story of her successes as a female scientist in the early 20th century and the intricate process of isolating her new element. Not to mention having the opportunity to assist Madame Marie Curie in her scientific explorations. Unfortunately, though, scientists at the Radium Institute were subjected to high amounts of radiation from the various radioactive elements, and Marguerite's story ends with a sacrifice for science. She died of radiation poisoning after working with the Curies and other scientists at the Radium Institute. Safety conditions there were nowhere near what they would be today. But nonetheless, Perey discovered her own element, calling it Francium, which filled one of the gaps in Dmitri Mendeleev’s original periodic table. This in-depth article explores the process of extraction of francium from actinium and how that element was discovered. It also discusses the dangers of working with radiation and the lack or withholding of knowledge of radiation from scientists and factory workers alike.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/magazine/my-great-great-aunt-discovered-francium-and-it-killed-her.html?_r=1