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podcast transcript
In the early 20th century, a shiny new element promised progress, prosperity, and even health.
It illuminated watch dials, captivated the public, and symbolized cutting-edge science.
But behind that light was a hidden danger that was slowly poisoning the very workers who brought it to life.
Their suffering will expose corporate negligence, transform workplace safety laws, and forever change the way we understand occupational safety.
Learn more about Radium Girls in this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Radium is the 88th element on the periodic table. It was discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie while researching uranium ore. They isolated it from pitchblende and identified it as a highly radioactive element that spontaneously emits heat and light.
Radium’s most notable properties are its intense radioactivity and its ability to glow in the dark, which at the time seemed almost miraculous.
In the early days of research surrounding radioactive elements, scientists knew what it was and developed theories about how it worked, but they had no idea what effect it had on the human body.
Within 20 years of radium’s discovery, companies began using radium commercially.
Founded in 1914, the United States Radium Corporation (USRC) operated as a radium processing company in the United States. The USRC’s primary mission was to extract and purify traces of radium from carnotite, a radioactive hazardous mineral containing primarily potassium and uranium.
Radium has also become common in the manufacturing process of products such as toothpaste and cosmetics. Companies were promoting radium as a health additive without knowing anything.
One of the biggest uses of radium was in glow-in-the-dark paints. This glow-in-the-dark paint was used to illuminate watch faces and instruments.
The USRC was one of the major suppliers of radium-luminous clocks that the military used to tell time on the battlefield. Radium was the perfect element for paint because it was long-lasting and could glow for thousands of years.
When the USRC opened a factory to manufacture these watches, it hired young women who later became known as Radium Girls, believing that their small hands were best suited to drawing precise watch faces.
They opened three factories in the United States. The first began operations in 1917 in Orange, New Jersey. Two others opened in the 1920s, one in Waterbury, Connecticut and the other in Ottawa, Illinois.
Women in the factory were paid a penny and a half for each finished watch dial. This means that the average daily wage for women is $3.75, which, adjusted for inflation, is equivalent to about $95 today. To make this amount, 250 watch dials had to be painted per shift.
Although women were assigned various radium tasks and told it was safe, scientists and managers at the plant avoided exposure to radium. The chemists who worked at the plant wore masks, touched the element only with tongs, and used lead screens to protect themselves from radium.
At this time, the adverse effects of radium were beginning to be reported in the medical literature, so it made sense for experts to take safety precautions.
This was in stark contrast to the exposure the women who painted dials faced every day. Women had no problems interacting with radium-containing paints because they were told that the element was completely safe.
Women painted clock faces inside small crucibles that held substances heated to high temperatures, such as metals. Inside the crucible, women painted the watch faces with camel hair brushes, small brushes with soft bristles made from natural hair.
To ensure watch dials were of the highest quality, UNRC supervisors encouraged women to mold the brush points with their lips to maintain their shape. This technique was called “Lip, Dip, Paint.” This technique worked very well for keeping the brush tip sharp.
Moreover, women had no idea about the side effects of radium, so they often played with the paint. They used luminous paint to decorate their fingernails, faces, teeth and other body parts for fun, unaware of the danger.
Naturally, these women’s side effects were serious. Continued exposure to radium was dangerous and highly contaminated.
The “lip, dip, paint” technique meant that no matter how careful these women were, they were inevitably ingesting dangerous chemicals. When leaving the factory, women often glowed because of the amount of radium on their clothes and skin.
If you remember my episode on radiation, strong alpha emitters like radium can be blocked relatively easily. But the last thing you want to do is ingest it, and that’s exactly what the women in the UNRC facility were doing.
The consequences of radium exposure were already apparent in the early 1920s.
The first group to realize the danger was dentists. Many painters who visited the dentist reported problems with their teeth, mouth, and jaw.
The women found that their teeth became loose, ulcerated and lesioned, and the extraction sites did not heal.
Women were also much more likely to develop conditions such as anemia and have bone fractures. They suffered problems with their menstrual cycles, some women became infertile, and many developed cancer from exposure.
One of the most well-known side effects was a condition now known as radium jaw. This caused radium deposits to form in the girls’ bones, rotting the upper and lower jaw bones and causing necrosis of the skin, muscles and bones in those areas. In other words, the jaw is literally dead.
Many women noticed that their health was deteriorating and sought medical help, but most found it unreliable.
The USRC contracted with Frederick Flynn, an industrial toxicologist at Columbia University. Flynn, like many of the doctors he referred patients to, had limited medical training and was not licensed to practice medicine.
This meant that many of the health screenings for women were little more than a ruse, a way to control information about the dangers of radium reaching them.
The USRC and other watch companies have also asked medical professionals, including doctors and dentists, not to disclose their findings about the dangers of radium. Many doctors have responded to this request for some time.
In 1922, the first recorded death from radium poisoning at a USRC plant. Amelia “Mollie” Maggia suffered from toothaches and ulcers early on, and later suffered from necrosis of the jaw, which required removal and ultimately died that year.
By 1924, 50 women had died from similar illnesses in New Jersey factories.
Due to high disease rates, the USRC inspected the New Jersey plant.
The investigation yielded shocking results. They discovered an environment with shockingly high amounts of radium, with no protection for workers.
Principal investigators Cecil Kent Drinker and Katherine Rotan of the Harvard School of Public Health were convinced that the illnesses the plant was experiencing were caused by radium and reported this to USRC President Arthur Roeder.
Roeder dismissed these findings, thinking the employee’s health problems were caused by an external infection. Following the company’s claims, medical experts similarly blamed syphilis for illness and death.
Syphilis was likely chosen because of how notorious it was at the time. Sexually transmitted diseases were often used to defame women.
The USRC attempted to avoid responsibility for illnesses and deaths by exploiting the stereotype that the women it hired were “unfit to work elsewhere.” Rather than admitting the company’s culpability, Roeder attempted to shift the blame onto the women, portraying them as irresponsible and at fault.
Drinker planned to publish his findings on radium contamination, but was threatened by Roeder. However, it was discovered that Roeder had fabricated reports to the New Jersey Department of Labor to portray the USRC in a better light.
With Roeder’s reputation damaged, Drinker had no problem publishing the report.
After reviewing Drinker’s report, the New Jersey Labor Commission mandated safety measures and resulted in the plant’s closure.
In 1925, a pathologist named Harrison Martland conclusively demonstrated that the girls were dying from radium poisoning that occurred while working on painting clock faces.
While the radium industry attempted to discredit Martland’s findings, the women affected were outraged. Many people knew they were living on borrowed time, but they wanted to make a difference for themselves and their peers who worked with substances.
An employee named Grace Fryer and several other women led the lawsuit filed against the company.
The case struggled to find legal representation for two years until Raymond Berry took over the case in 1927. The legal drama that followed, combined with shocking details of the plant’s abuses and the resulting damage, quickly became a major media story.
Because the legal system is slow, women who sue companies often have to settle out of court. Because many women only have a few months left to live. The first court appearance in this long legal battle did not occur until 1928.
Five of the factory workers appeared in court that year: Grace Fryer, Edna Mussman, Quinta McDonald, Katherine Schaub, and Labina Larice. Two of them were lying in bed, and neither of them could raise their hands to swear.
These five were dubbed the ‘Radium Girls’ in the press, and many newspapers described the women as ‘the living dead.’
Despite initially denying negligence, the USRC eventually settled the case out of court with the Radium Girls. Terms of the settlement included $10,000 per woman and a $600 annual pension. Additionally, the company had to cover all associated medical and legal costs.
Sadly, all five women died before the end of 1933.
Despite the out-of-court settlement, the legal battle between the radium company and the Radium Girls continued. It is important to note that USRC is not the only company involved in legal trouble. In particular, the Radium Dial Company used the same technology as the USRC and suffered the same side effects.
People at Radium Dial eventually heard about the lawsuit in New Jersey, but were told by the company that the people involved were infected and that radium was not the cause. They were told the substance was safe and promised they could return to work.
After learning more about the effects of radium and taking inspiration from the early Radium Girls lawsuits, several legal cases against Radium Dial were filed in Illinois starting in 1927.
From 1927 to the mid-1930s, factory workers lost lawsuit after lawsuit. But something changed in 1936.
The state of Illinois passed the Illinois Occupational Diseases Act in 1936. It’s part of a bill that would require employers to handle cases of industrial poisoning. This act was a direct result of the Radium Girl incident.
After the law was passed, several Radium Girls, led by Catherine Donohue, filed a lawsuit against Radium Dial. The suit found Radium Dial guilty and ordered it to pay $10,000 in compensation to the women.
The Radium Girls case has deep significance as a groundbreaking legal precedent. This is one of the first successful cases in which a company was held liable for injuries suffered by an employee.
This case paved the way for more workers to file lawsuits to protect their health and safety, which in turn led companies to enact stronger protections and regulations for their workers. Everyone benefits.
In particular, the Radium Girls lawsuit was instrumental in establishing occupational disease labor laws and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
The Radium Girls were the subject of a 2018 film and Kate Moore’s 2016 book., And stage plays. This brought the Radium Girls’ story to a wider audience, highlighting both the human tragedy and the legal implications.
The legacy of the Radium Girls serves as a warning about industrial safety and shows that even the faintest light can cast a very long shadow.
