Marie Anne Paulze Lavoisier: The Mother of Modern Chemistry

TCE

The Chemical Educator

ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)

Table of Contents

Abstract Volume 3 Issue 5 (1998), S1430-4171(98)05249-8

Marie Anne Paulze Lavoisier: The Mother of Modern Chemistry

Cassandra T. Eagle* and Jennifer Sloan

Department of Chemistry, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608

Published online: 1 October 1998

Abstract. Marie Anne Pierrette Paulze was a significant contributor to the understanding of chemistry in the late 1700s. Marie Anne married Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, known as the "Father of Modern Chemistry," and was his chief collaborator and laboratory assistant. Marie Anne Lavoisier translated Richard Kirwan’s "Essay on Phlogiston" from English to French which allowed her husband and others to dispute Kirwan’s ideas. She drew many sketches and carved engravings of the laboratory instruments used by Lavoisier and his colleagues. She edited and published Lavoisier’s Memoirs and hosted many parties where eminent scientists discussed new chemistry and ideas. As a result of her close work with Antoine Lavoisier, it is difficult to separate her individual contributions from his, but it is correctly assumed that much of the work accredited to him bears her fingerprints.

Key Words: Chemistry and History; Marie Anne Paulze Lavoisier; women in chemistry; history of chemistry; balance; phlogiston; conservation of mass; feminine influences in chemistry; 18th century female scientists; French chemists; female illustrators of 18th century France; subjects of artist Jacques Louis David; Women’s Bread March; women of the French Revolution

(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: eaglect@appstate.edu)

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