okay so this is the Coleman mantle going by
and this is the Fiesta where it totally pegs
So when I was a geophysicist years ago I used to have to go through hazmat
training because I dealt with a lot of environmental hazards and one of the
trainings I went through we talked about radium and the Radium Girls and those
are the women I'm going to talk about today the Rosie Riveters you don't hear
much about. so we take glow-in-the-dark things very there look at their
commonplace nowadays but back in the day like the turn of the century and World
War two in order to make something glow-in-the-dark we had to use radio so
during World War two the airplane dials had to glow in the
dark while our men were flying in the air and in order to make those dials
glow in the dark we had to use radium paint to paint the numbers and the tick
marks on the dials I did this job one time I was closing a military base and
somebody had buried some of these dials out in a field back in the day before
APA and all those environmental protection agencies were around and they
buried it out in this field and a 90 year old man told us that they were out
there and so it was my job to go find them and why did we have to find those
dials not only was the trash but they were glow-in-the-dark dials that went on
the planes back in World War two meaning they were painted with radium
meaning they were radioactive
so in order to get those fine lines the tick marks on those dials you would have
to take a paintbrush dip it into the paint and paint these fine lines and
then what these women would do is lick the paintbrush to give it that fine
point dip it in the paint and then draw the line and they do this over and over
again well it came to be this was not a good idea so you think to yourself why
did these women do that didn't they know better no they didn't and not only did
they not know better but they were told by the factories to do this they wanted
them to take the the brushes onto their lips and get that fine point as best as
they could and this started back in the 20s and 30s right after madam Curie
discovered radium it started a whole new industry
glow-in-the-dark watches dials all sorts of things
this one is a radium pulled chain for your Lantern that was in 1905 in a
little side note that orange Fiestaware that was your mom's or your grandmas
from years back well the paint they used to use with that was made out of uranium
and you could put a Geiger counter on one of those plates and it would go off
no kidding
this is actually being used of what is Fiestaware Fiestaware I told you
Fiestaware
that's pretty hot okay look at that pig out okay so when I was going through
hazmat training back in the day they used to tell they told us that the older
Fiestaware was radioactive and this is old
Fiestaware if you're not familiar with it that they will kind of hispanic
looking i watch when it was by the Geiger counter okay well this is even
scarier these are the old mammals off a Coleman lantern alright they yes they
are I can't tell you how many times those have crumbled in my hand over the
years okay so now the Fiestaware is going through that totally pegs it out
and now the old Mantle's from a Coleman lantern is not
as strong but as it is pretty dang high no but yeah if you've got old Fiestaware
that was handed down to you you know you need to be careful so if you bought it
in an antique store so this is some food that is has naturally occurring
radiation so salt substitute cowbo four zillion nuts are really high
it says Brazilian nuts are the world's most radioactive food they have a high
radium concentration some have as much as a thousand times more radium than the
average food Brazilian nuts those are in their shells kitty litter is that
because of the bentonite most kitty litter is made from clay that which is
bentonite from clay that acts as an absorbent since clay typically contains
elevated levels of naturally occurring
radio nuclide large amounts of kitty litter can be measured a measure ly
radioactive Taster's Choice babies Taster's Choice instant coffee about
that one you make Kahlua using MIDI and he can milk oh my god all
fishing lures from 1930s to 1919 22 1930s Sensodyne toothpaste uses
potassium nitrate it works jacket works by calming the nerves of the tooth would
prevent the transmitting of painful stimuli and then Fiestaware of course is
I knew about that radiated I think they did an intentionally well
it's the color they were going for the color so for the red they used I uranium
oxide yeah in the glades yeah so in Moab you could buy uranium jewelry
back in the day I think they actually have it in the gift shop here so mow an
ammo have uranium necklace the uranium capital of the world I did not know that
about Moab was home of some of the most famous uranium mines in the United
States visitors could take home souvenir jewelry fashioned from small pieces of
uranium Wow you also need to be careful on what is called vaseline glass it's
also known as carny glass because during the Depression it was a prize that you
could win from throwing a coin onto it at a carnival they still have many of
those games today carny glass contains a small amount of uranium this gives the
glass it's a yellow green color it also makes the glass glow bright green under
a blacklight so what happened to the radium girls these women ingested quite
a bit of radium and radium acts similar to calcium so the radium that workers
ingested was deposited into their bones many of these workers developed bone
cancer usually in their jaws
the radium girls worked for the u.s. radium corporation this corporation
extracted and purified radium and made it into paint
the factory was located the intersection of High and Alden Street in Orange New
Jersey and more than a hundred women worked at the factory at that time one
of the first to die was Molly magic there were seven sisters in her family
and four of them worked for us radium corporation Molly died in 1922 at the
age of 24 and several causes were blamed for her death but none of them was
radium at the time before her death Molly's jaw was removed after it began
to break away and she developed a me Nia and her mouth would not stop bleeding by
1927 more than 50 other women suffered similar fates eventually it was
determined that the cause was the repeated exposure to ingesting radium
in 1927 five dial painters filed a lawsuit against the corporation they
exhumed Molly five years after her death the autopsy her body which was well
preserved after five years and found that each and every portion of tissue
and bone tested radioactive the women went through a lengthy legal process
including numerous appeals and it was finally settled in 1928 each of them
were awarded $10,000 and in addition to $600 per year for life other lawsuits of
sued the other was in Illinois where the same company had a factory there these
women also won their suit due to Molly's postpartum sacrifice and in the first
time in u.s. history that an employer was found negligent and required to pay
settlement to its workers
ironically radium was discovered by a woman Madame Curie I'm sure you've heard
of her and Madame Curie she died herself of radioactive poisoning from the radium
she used to carry around in her pocket if you'd like to learn more about the
radium girls there's a wonderful book called the radium girls and I've put a
link down in the description to that very book and remember the links in the
description helps support this channel there's also a wonderful movie that came
out in 2020 called the radium girls also and how one woman got sick from the
radium and how she fought the company that gave her this illness so make sure
you check that out make sure to subscribe to our Channel and give us a
thumbs up and remember the links down in the description they help support this
gel and make sure you click on one of the tiles to my side to see some more
from Colorado martini
you