Standard Chemical Company
Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Founded here by brothers J.J. and Joseph Flannery in 1913, it was the first commercial producer of radium in the US. Radium production was the earliest nuclear industry. Discoverer Marie Curie visited the laboratory in 1921 and was presented with 1 gram of the element for research.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Founded in Pittsburgh in 1913 by brothers J.J. and Joseph Flannery, the Standard Chemical Company was the first commercial producer of radium in the United States — the earliest chapter of what would become the nuclear industry. Extracting the rare element from carnotite ore was painstaking, costly work at the frontier of science. In 1921 Marie Curie herself, radium's co-discoverer, visited the laboratory and was presented with a full gram of the element to support her research.
Why it matters
Here America first turned radioactivity into an industry, foreshadowing both the medical and atomic revolutions that radium's science would unleash in the century to come.
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Related people
- · J.J. Flannery
- · Joseph Flannery
- · Marie Curie
Themes & tags
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