Salem Press

Great Lives from History: The 19th Century offers worldwide coverage of important men and women in all areas of achievement who flourished between 1801 and 1900. Below is an excerpt from the Great Lives's essay on Alfred Nobel.

Alfred Nobel
In his final years, Alfred Nobel speculated that he would die alone, unattended by anyone who loved him; his prediction was accurate. He spent the summer of 1896 at his home, Björkborn in Bofors, after which he went to his home in Paris, and then to San Remo. His health was failing, but he continued to work, write to his friends, and plan. On December 10, 1896, Nobel collapsed in his laboratory, and that evening, with only his servants present, Nobel died of heart failure.

On November 27, 1895, Nobel had drafted a holograph will, replacing one that left his vast fortune essentially to relatives, servants, and friends. The new will, for which Nobel will be forever remembered, substantially reduced his personal bequests. It directed that his residual estate be invested conservatively and that the income from these investments be used to establish annual prizes to be awarded with no reservations regarding nationality to those people whose activities are deemed to be of the greatest benefit to humankind in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace.

Nobel’s will was contested and was in litigation for more than three years. Afterward, however, a system was established for the distribution of the income in the form of Nobel Prizes, the first set of which were awarded in 1901. As the income from the Nobel trust has increased, the size of each award has grown to the point that in 2005 the typical prize was worth over $1.3 million, more than thirty times what the same award had been worth fifty years earlier.

- R. Baird Shumanred