![]() ![]() When Drinker spoke to him about the danger in the careless and unprotected the way he handled the radium, he "scoffed at the possibility of future damage". During the investigation, Drinker noticed that us Radium's chemist, Edward Lehman, had serious lesions on his hands. Drinker found a heavily contaminated work force, unusual blood conditions in virtually everyone, and advanced radium necrosis in several workers. Meanwhile, Harvard University physiology professor Cecil Drinker had begun his own investigations of us radium. The case swiftly grew into a media phenomenon, as results of tests done on the women became public and the real effects of radiation exposure became known. The us Consumers' League backed the women's cause after it was brought in to investigate the suspicious deaths of four factory workers between19. Four more workers, Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub, Quinta McDonald and Albina Larice joined Grace, and were dubbed 'the Radium Girls' by the media. ![]() It took Grace two years to find a lawyer willing to take on us Radium. Finally, in July 1925, one doctor suggested that the problems might have been caused by her former occupation. x -ray photos of her mouth and back showed the development of serious bone decay. She consulted a series of doctors, but none had seen a problem like it. The hazel eyes that had charmed her friends now clouded with pain. But in 1922, her teeth started falling out and her jaw developed a painful abscess. Grace had quit the factory in 1920 for a better job as a bank teller. Grace Fryer decided to sue us radium in 1925. Like other factory workers at that time, the 'Radium Girls' were expendable. Meanwhile, the owners and the scientists of us Radium - familiar with the element's effects - carefully avoided any exposure to themselves, using lead screens, masks and tongs around the material. Syphilis was often blamed in an attempt to tarnish the reputations of the women. A campaign of disinformation was started by the company following pressure by the corporation, doctors attributed workers' deaths to other causes. Loose girls us Radium denied that the women were suffering from radium exposure. ![]() Some had tumours bulging from their jaws and leg bones, where the radium had settled. Increasingly, the other women suffered from anemia and bone fractures almost all had unusual blood conditions. She was suffering from necrosis of the jaw, which proved fatal. In 1922, however, the dial painter Irene Rudolf began to complain of toothache. The company's owner said the sand was more beneficial than the mud of the world's best curative baths. Residues from us Radium's refineries were used to make sand for children's sand boxes. 'Radithor', a medical drink sold over the counter until 1931, was said to bathe the user in "liquid sunshine" - if drunk regularly, it contained enough radium to kill. The element and its supposed uses were championed by academics, physicians and the us government itself. Discovered in 1898 by French scientists, Pierre and Marie Curie, the natural radioactive element was the new wonder substance, seen by most people as a miracle drug that could cure anything from arthritis to cancer. "Not to worry," their bosses said "If you swallow any radium, it'll make your cheeks rosy."Īpathy A lack of concern over radiation was endemic at the time. The factory was so full of radium dust that the women's skin and hair glowed by the time they left work. The women painted their nails, teeth and faces with the radium paint for entertainment when the lights went out. The brushes would lose their shape after a few strokes, so the women pointed them with their lips to keep them sharp. The workers mixed glue, water and radium powder together and applied the glowing paint onto the racks of dials with camel hair brushes. Racks of dials waiting to be painted sat next to each woman's chair. In a dusty room Grace Fryer started working in the spring of 1917 with 70 other women in a large, dusty room filled with long tables. Their plant in Orange produced radio-luminescent watch faces, employing around 100 workers - mainly women - to paint the radium-lit watch faces and instruments. Labour laws in many countries also bear the imprint of this case.įrom 1917 to 1926, the us Radium Corporation produced radium-based products, including luminous paints under the brand name, 'Undark'. The ensuing case of the 'Radium Girls' would change perceptions of radioactive materials, forever. For it was in a factory here in the 1920s that almost hundred young women were slowly poisoned to death with radium. Underneath the sleepy suburbs of Orange, New Jersey, usa, lies a unique site in the history of labour rights and the understanding of radioactive materials. ![]()
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