Editing Nobel Prize (section)

=== Inaugural Nobel prizes ===
[[File:Röntgen, Wilhelm Conrad (1845-1923).jpg|thumb|upright|alt=A black and white photo of a bearded man in his fifties sitting in a chair.|[[Wilhelm Röntgen]], who received the first [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] for his discovery of the [[X-ray]]]]
Once the Nobel Foundation and its guidelines were in place, the [[Nobel Committee]]s began collecting nominations for the inaugural prizes. Subsequently, they sent a list of preliminary candidates to the prize-awarding institutions.

The Nobel Committee's Physics Prize shortlist cited [[Wilhelm Röntgen]]'s discovery of [[X-ray]]s and [[Philipp Lenard]]'s work on [[cathode ray]]s. The Academy of Sciences selected Röntgen for the prize.<ref name="Feldman134">[[Nobel Prize#Feldman|Feldman]], p. 134.</ref><ref name="Leroy117-118">[[Nobel Prize#Leroy|Leroy]], pp. 117–118.</ref> In the last decades of the 19th century, many chemists had made significant contributions. Thus, with the Chemistry Prize, the academy "was chiefly faced with merely deciding the order in which these scientists should be awarded the prize".<ref name="Levinovitz77">[[Nobel Prize#Levinovitz69|Levinovitz]], p. 77.</ref> The academy received 20 nominations, eleven of them for [[Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff|Jacobus van 't Hoff]].<ref name="Crawford118">[[Nobel Prize#Crawford69|Crawford]], p. 118.</ref> Van 't Hoff was awarded the prize for his contributions in [[chemical thermodynamics]].<ref name="Levinovitz81">[[Nobel Prize#Levinovitz69|Levinovitz]], p. 81.</ref><ref name="Feldman205">[[Nobel Prize#Feldman|Feldman]], p. 205.</ref>

The Swedish Academy chose the poet [[Sully Prudhomme]] for the first Nobel Prize in Literature. A group including 42 Swedish writers, artists, and literary critics protested against this decision, having expected [[Leo Tolstoy]] to be awarded.<ref name="Levinovitz144">[[Nobel Prize#Levinovitz69|Levinovitz]], p. 144.</ref> Some, including [[Burton Feldman]], have criticised this prize because they consider Prudhomme a mediocre poet. Feldman's explanation is that most of the academy members preferred [[Victorian literature]] and thus selected a Victorian poet.<ref name="Feldman69">[[Nobel Prize#Feldman|Feldman]], p. 69.</ref> The first Physiology or Medicine Prize went to the German physiologist and microbiologist [[Emil von Behring]]. During the 1890s, von Behring developed an [[antitoxin]] to treat [[diphtheria]], which until then had been causing thousands of deaths each year.<ref name="Feldman242-244">[[Nobel Prize#Feldman|Feldman]], pp. 242–244.</ref><ref name="Leroy233">[[Nobel Prize#Leroy|Leroy]], p. 233.</ref>

The first [[Nobel Peace Prize]] went to the Swiss [[Henry Dunant|Jean Henri Dunant]] for his role in founding the International [[International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement|Red Cross Movement]] and initiating the Geneva Convention, and jointly given to French pacifist [[Frédéric Passy]], founder of the Peace League and active with Dunant in the Alliance for Order and Civilization.