beginning in the 1910s and continuing through the 1920s more than 3 000 young women jumped
on a new and unusual work opportunity painting glow-in-the-dark numbers on dials of watches
clocks and military equipment the digits glowed because the paint contained radium
and the women were delighted to work for such a prestigious company
they were all paid 40 000 a year which at the time was sensational but little did they know
that their work would come back at a steep price their health quickly declined and ultimately some
lost their lives with the beginning of these gruesome side effects the women began a race
against time to fight for justice that would forever change the united states's labor laws
today we will discuss the use of radium why it was so popular how the employees got sick
and what's to make of the old radium factory today this is the story of the radium girls
and new jersey's radioactive neighborhood i'm your host ryan socash and you're watching it's history
the radium craze began in 1898 when french physicists maria and pierre curie two of the most
prominent pioneers in researching radioactivity and their associate henry beckel discovered the
element maria curie was born on november the 7th 1867 in warsaw poland and died on july the 4th
1934 in france she was a polish-born french physicist famous for her work on radioactivity and
a twice winner of the nobel prize now although maria was born in this warsaw tenement right
beside me she ultimately elected to leave for france where it was thought and later proven
that the educational institutions were progressive enough to embrace the ideas of a female physicist
not only was she the first woman to win a nobel prize but she was also the only woman to win the
prize in two different fields these two fields included physics and chemistry her husband pierre
was born on may the 15th 1859 in paris france and died on april the 19th 1906. perry was educated by
his father a doctor in mathematics and geometry at the age of 14. in the spring of 1894 puri met
marie and their marriage on july the 25th 1895 marked the beginning of a world famous scientific
achievement with the discovery of polonium and then radium the use of radium skyrocketed and
many considered it a miracle element it was used successfully in cancer treatment even though
its properties were not known well later it was introduced to various commercial products
such as toothpaste tonic water and cosmetics but most certainly radium became most famous for its
luminous glow-in-the-dark feature that became prominent in military watches
this feature allowed for time to be read in the dark at the onset of world war one
several factories were established across the united states to produce watches and military
dials painted with a material containing radium this essential ingredient was approximately 1
million times more active than uranium perhaps the most well-known factory site where this work was
being done was located in orange new jersey and was operated by the united states radium
corporation founded in 1914 in new york city by saban arnold von sashiki and dr george s willis
the company produced luminous paints and other radium products for military and medical purposes
from 1917 to 1926 and marketed their bright color under the brand name on dark this product was a
blend mix of glue water and radium powder that was applied to the watch faces and airplane cockpit
dials with world war one came the demand for dials watches and aircraft instruments
painted with luminescence paint so with that in mind as many as 300 young women worked as
dial painters at their neighborhood us radium corporation plant the luminous material was
furnished to each dial painter one at a time in small tubes approximately one to two grams each
this mixture ordinarily got on the hands of the young woman when mixing and unfortunately the
painters ingested the radioactive substances in a way as a part of their job you see initially
the painter's fine brush was rinsed in a glass of water and then it was common to use one's
mouth to point the end of the paintbrush for precision however the water was soon taken away
as the company felt it wasted too much material at peak production nearly 55 200 dials were created
per year by each dial painter some of the early painters ingested vast quantities of radium as
they were actually instructed to use their lips to bring their paintbrushes to a fine point
when they asked about radium safety their managers assured them that they had nothing to worry about
until 1920 the dial painters were allowed to eat at their work station without even
washing their hands and perhaps exacerbating the situation the young women painted their nails
teeth and faces with paint for fun the women hired to paint dials became known as quote ghost girls
because the radium dust to which they were exposed daily made their clothing hair and skin glow many
of the women wore their best dresses on the job so the fabric would shine brilliantly when they went
out dancing after work and it should be emphasized here that at that time no one really knew that
radium was dangerous oddly the effects of radium weren't publicized at the time especially since
marie curie herself suffered radiation burns while handling it and eventually she died from
radiation exposure her husband once said that he couldn't bear sharing a room with even a kilogram
of the substances because he was afraid it would blind him and burn his skin off other
researchers working with radium also perished and it wasn't long before the employees also
known as the radium girls began to experience the physical ravages of their exposure the first issue
occurred with amelia maja who painted watches for the u.s radium corporation her first symptom was a
toothache which required the removal of the tooth soon the tooth next to it also had to be extracted
painful ulcers bleeding and pus-filled abrasions developed where the teeth had been the mysterious
illness spread throughout her mouth and her lower jaw which then had to be removed and as grotesque
as this already is sadly the illness spread into the other parts of her body she died on september
the 12th 1922 of a massive hemorrhage doctors were puzzled about what caused her condition
they determined that she had died of syphilis the dial painters and other workers were aware
of their deteriorating health conditions as early as 1917. however it took the medical authorities
until the mid-1920 to document this travesty because the u.s radium corporation executives
urged doctors to attribute deaths to causes other than radiation poisoning syphilis was
often cited for smearing the reputations of the female workers in fact the men wore aprons to
protect themselves from the radiation while the women were given nothing supposedly the
company required this difference because the male engineers were handling huge bundles of
raw material well the girls were never exposed to more than a very small amount in one sitting
the women were repeatedly told that radium was safe and many didn't argue because for the time
the work was extremely well paid these ladies felt lucky to be working in the radium dial factories
the dangers of radium were unknown to the public even though some executives and scientists in the
industry were increasingly aware and protecting themselves in the factories where the women worked
there were several symptoms from the effect of radium that the girls suffered dentists were the
first to begin seeing numerous problems among the dial painters so-called radium jaw was a condition
of dental pain loose teeth lesions and ulcers also failure of tooth extractions to heal dial
painters frequently suffered from the suppression of menstruation and even sterility if pregnant
they were prone to stillbirths or terminations of the pregnancy as the doctors would not permit the
development of the fetus additionally there were extreme deformities in body structure
fractures and shortening of limbs for example before magia's death her jaw fell away from
her skull while one of her colleagues suffered a total collapse of her vertebrae others developed
skin cancer cataracts throat cancer and other symptoms of long-term radiation exposure such as
loose teeth and hair loss by 1924 50 women who had worked at the plant were ill and a dozen had died
in growing numbers other radium girls became deathly ill and for years their employer denied
any connection between the girls death and their work of course at the urging of the companies
workers deaths were attributed by medical professionals to other causes supervisors assured
the girls that they were safe on a daily basis in 1927 five years after her symptoms began a bank
teller and former dial painter named grace fryer filed suit against the u.s radium corporation
in new jersey she decided to sue even though it took her two whole years to find a lawyer
willing to take on the radium corporation and in 1927 attorney raymond berry agreed to accept
their case before the hearing the company finally commissioned an independent study of the matter
which concluded that painters had died from radium exposure refusing to accept the report's
findings the company commissioned additional studies that came to the opposite conclusion
the public continued to assume that radium was safe the radium girls fought back even though they
knew that their days were numbered but they wanted to do something to help their colleagues still
working with the deadly substance the hearing took place the media covered the ensuing litigation
and the term radium girls became known worldwide friar was joined in action by four other ill
factory workers edna hussman katherine schaub quinita mcdonald and albina larise at their
first court appearance in january of 1928 the two were bedridden and none could raise their arms to
take an oath grace who was unable to walk required a back brace to sit up straight the women were too
ill to attend the next hearing which was pushed to april at the u.s radium's urging the judge
adjourned the case until september because several u.s radium witnesses were vacationing in europe
national outrage over the heartless delay erupted in the media prompting the courts
to reschedule for early june days before the trial and out-of-court settlement was reached
despite u.s radium's contention that the statute of limitations exonerated them of liability after
two years the women reluctantly accepted the offer as they were not expected to live much longer each
woman agreed not to hold the us radium corporation liable and was given a measly ten thousand dollars
and six hundred dollars per year well living in addition to paying for all the medical expenses
incurred not surprisingly few of the annual fees were collected the last of the five radium girls
died in the 1930s later medical research found that the dial painters had ingested a few hundred
to a few thousand microcuries of radium per year today the maximum safe exposure is considered to
be one tenth of a microcurie the courage of these women to take legal action against their employer
and subsequent hearings and national media attention led to changes in regulations governing
safety standards it established occupational disease labor law it required safety precautions
and protective gear for radium dial painters as radium paint was still used on dials as
late as the 1960s congress eventually passed a bill in 1949 making all occupational diseases
compensatable and extended the time for workers to discover illnesses and file claim the number
of people who were sickened or killed by on dark and similar radioactive pigments over the years
is unknown but it is estimated that approximately 4 000 women died across the country as a result
of working as dial painters over several decades thanks to the radium girls effort
and the ensuing improvements in industry safety countless others were spared a dreadful fate the
preservation of the radium girls and their courage to challenge the u.s radium corporation even as
they were dying set a precedent in a case for the right of individual workers to sue employers
for damages caused by labor abuse in the wake of their legal battle industrial safety standards
were enhanced by passing federal laws that made occupational diseases compensatable and extended
the time to which workers could discover illnesses to make claims furthermore data developed from
the experiences of these unfortunate young women was instrumental in setting new radium tolerance
levels for researchers and workers before the occupational safety and health administration was
set up fourteen thousand people died on the job every year today the number falls to around four
thousand five hundred it also warrants mentioning that the women left a legacy to science which
has been termed valuable when it comes to our understanding of these matters after the trial
several scientific studies began to take place on the effects of radium a doctor named harrison
martin devised tests that proved that radium had poisoned the women once and for all the doctor
also explained what was happening inside of their bodies and according to him as early as
1901 it had been evident that radium could harm humans dramatically when applied externally but
when ingested internally even in a tiny amount the damage was many thousands of times greater
therefore ingested radium had subsequently settled in the women's bodies and was emitting
constant destructive radiation that deteriorated their bones it was essentially boring holes inside
of them while they were alive the center for human radiology was established in 1968 with the primary
purpose of providing medical examination for living dial painters the project also focused on
collecting information and in some cases tissue samples from the radium dial painters when the
project ended in 1993 detailed information on 2403 cases had been collected this led to a book on
the effects of radium on humans the factory site in orange new jersey is known to have traces of
radiation due to the legacy of an earlier and more naive era where a vast abundance of radium was
used however officials say the radiation levels are not dangerous to the workers at the electric
companies now on the land where the radium corporation once stood in consideration of the
significance of what happened here the u.s radium corporation site was determined to be significant
and eligible for listing in the national register of historic places in 1997 at that time two of
the most important buildings of the business remain the paint application building and the
radium crystallization laboratory in 1980 the new jersey department of environmental protection
found radium levels at the site of up to 50 micro curies per liter versus the average background
level of just 0.3 in addition surface testing revealed highly contaminated soil with 200 to
300 pico curies per gram with high nods of up to 5 000 per gram so in 1983 the u.s radium
property was designated as a superfund site and remediation of the area began in 1997 and lasted
nine years during this period the two remaining buildings were demolished as a part of the cleanup
and to remove radiological contamination and soil to a depth of 15 feet the new jersey historic
preservation office required documentation of the structure before its demolition these buildings
were simple concrete block structures with rectangular floor plans both were built in 1917
in a neighborhood of the late 19th century worker housing and hat factories what's more
both were used commercially until the 1980s and had been heavily altered by additions removal of
original equipment and fixtures although the u.s radium factory new jersey was the most
infamous case of radium dial painting it was far from the only one it is estimated that
by the 1920s as many as 4 000 workers were hired at companies across the united states and canada
to paint radium dials radium watches would continue to be manufactured until 1968.
the safety regulations were drastically improved simply because of the radium girls their case
impacted the establishment of strict guidelines for worker safety and compensation the court
battle was an ugly one but ultimately changed the laws for health and security forever but you still
have to wonder did new jersey truly clean up all of its radiation let me know what you think in the
comment section below join us for new videos every thursday and saturday by subscribing and share our
new jersey playlist with your friends until next time guys this is ryan socas signing off