Which woman was the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate?

Bertha von Suttner was the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Austrian novelist and pacifist won the prize in 1905 for her sustained work advocating peace and international arbitration. Her best-known book, Lay Down Your Arms!, published in 1889, portrayed the human cost of war and became an influential anti-war novel. Suttner also maintained a correspondence with Alfred Nobel and encouraged his interest in peace work.

Suttner was the second woman to win any Nobel Prize, after Marie Curie received the Physics Prize in 1903. She is sometimes confused with Jane Addams, who became the second woman Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1931, or Mother Teresa, who won in 1979. Suttner’s image later appeared on Austria’s 1,000-schilling banknote, reflecting her importance in Austrian cultural and political history.