Nobel Prize

by Birgitta Lemmel The explosives plant at Vinterviken (Winter Bay) just outside Stockholm, Nitroglycerin Aktiebolaget, was Alfred Nobel’s very first company. The manufacture of nitroglycerine on an industrial scale started there as early as 1865, and for more than fifty years the Vinterviken factory was to deliver Nobel explosives and blasting devices of various kinds…

The Salpeter factory. A drawing by Olle Rydberg (above) and a recently taken picture (below).

Heleneborg – after the explosion in 1864.  

The Detonics Research Laboratory around 1963. Copyright © Nitro Nobel

Alfred Nobel’s youngest brother Emil, killed in the explosion at Heleneborg in 1864.

The factory at Vinterviken was destroyed more than once by terrible explosions. Sketch by R. Haglund.

The sulfuric acid factory before it was renovated. Copyright © Nitro Nobel Workers outside the factory. Copyright © Nitro Nobel   The sulfuric acid factory. Drawing by Olle Rydberg Copyright © Nitro Nobel  

by Birgitta Lemmel In 1873 Alfred Nobel settled in Paris and bought a magnificent house on He had a small laboratory in the yard, where he worked together with the young French chemist Georges D. Fehrenbach, who was to become Nobel’s faithful and trustworthy assistant behind the scenes during the nearly two decades that the…

by Birgitta Lemmel Between 1865 and 1873 Alfred Nobel’s home, laboratory, and the focal point of his business were in Hamburg. In 1873 he left Hamburg and moved to Paris. He had always had a great liking for Paris, which was the lively center of international business and had all cultural activities that he had…

(1805-1889) Mother of Alfred (1833-1896), Robert (1829-1896), Ludvig (1831-1888), Emil (1843-1864) and two children who died as infants. Andriette Nobel (maiden name Ahlsell) was a gifted woman, daughter of an accountant. In 1827 she married Immanuel Nobel and for a couple of years the two lived in Stockholm under reasonable economic conditions. In 1833 Immanuel…