Radium Girls

The radium girls were women who worked in factories painting numbers on watch dials using radium ink in the early twentieth century. They swallowed the radioactive substance when they put the paintbrushes between their lips to sharpen them, and they frequently became severely ill with radiation poisoning. Their teeth fell out, their bones crumbled, and dozens died of severe illness. Some of the sick women organized, sued their employers, and won settlements. Their experiences altered workplace safety laws for future generations and led the US federal government to establish safe handling practices for radioactive substances.

Background

Polish chemist Marie Sklodowska Curie and her husband, French chemist Pierre Curie, discovered the earth metal radium in 1898 while working with uranium. Radium, Ra on the Periodic Table, has an atomic number of eighty-eight and an atomic weight of 226. It is highly radioactive. Upon its discovery, scientists were puzzled by its ability to continue to give off energy without losing weight, despite what was then known about physics.

Radiation can cause many health problems, including cancer. However, early in the twentieth century, many doctors and businesses claimed that radium offered a wealth of health benefits. They promoted radium-infused water to cure anemia, arthritis, gout, high blood pressure, and other health conditions. Some claimed that radium would restore youthful vitality and built devices to deliver a dose of radiation to areas of the body such as glands. Researchers claimed that radium gave sight to two boys who had been born blind and invigorated aged horses. As late as 1932, some medical doctors told their wealthy patients to drink beverages infused with radium.

The public was also captivated by the visible quality of radium—it glowed in the dark. Radium paint was invented in 1908, and the US military began using it on dials in airplanes and other equipment to make them easier to see in low-light conditions. The radium in the paint was self-luminous, meaning that it did not have to absorb energy from an external source, such as the sun, to glow. It was paired with a phosphor, usually zinc sulfide, which would increase the weak glow of radium alone. The high cost of the substance, five thousand dollars a grain in 1914, increased its allure.

Clock and watchmakers soon touted radium-painted dials on their products. Many employed young working-class women to paint the tiny numbers using radium paint in clock and watch factories in New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut. The workers painted hundreds of watch faces per day. To precisely paint the tiny numbers, they dipped their small brushes into the radium paint, then used their lips to form the bristles into a narrow point.

Even after the effects of radium on these young women became known in the 1920s, radium remained a popular medical cure. However, the death of a wealthy business mogul who ingested a radium beverage changed the perception of the element. Eben M. Byers drank Radithor, a radium-infused beverage, daily for two years. After his death in 1932, the fifty-one-year-old was found to have anemia, a brain abscess, and necrosis, or cell death, in his jaws. Due to his status as an influential industrialist, Byers’ death prompted swift action by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and health officials.

Overview

Radium painters in watch factories were usually working-class women in their late teens and early twenties. The women were happy to get jobs working with radium, a respectable position in the early 1920s, and often painted two hundred watch faces a day. While working, radium dust from the factory settled on their hair, clothing, and skin. After dark, they glowed. Some even dabbed a bit of radium paint on their skin to see it shine in the dark. The factories hired many more young women to paint dials after the US entered World War I in 1917 when companies received government contracts for military equipment dials and compasses. After the war ended, the public demand for radium-decorated products skyrocketed, and the plants continued to employ large workforces.

Radium painters, including young women who had moved on to other employment, began to fall ill in 1922. The first sign of sickness was often pain and degeneration of the tissues of the jaw. Many of the young women developed abscesses, but after a dentist pulled the tooth, the hole in the gum refused to heal. Over many months, the women had more and more teeth pulled as the infection spread.

The dentists who saw these cases were baffled. They tried every treatment they could think of but could not stem the infections. Their patients suffered excruciating pain as well as foul odors from the wounds that would not heal. Several dentists had experience treating phosphorus poisoning and recognized the similarity with their patients’ symptoms. White phosphorous had been used in nineteenth-century factories that manufactured matches. Many of the workers developed abscesses in their mouths, which was called phossy jaw. These infections led to facial disfigurement and in some cases brain damage, which was fatal. The dentists treating radium painters made inquiries, and at least one researcher sent samples of the radium paint to be tested, but no phosphorus was found in it. Reports were filed by a dentist and a former radium painter, but because radium was believed to be safe, and even beneficial, no action was taken.

In late 1923, some radium painting factories began advising the painters to stop putting the brushes into their mouths to make the fine bristle points. They were told this was because the acid in their mouths ruined the adhesive in the paint, not that radium was dangerous. In December of that year, the US Public Health Service issued an official report noting that two radium workers had experienced skin problems and anemia. The report advised manufacturers to handle radium carefully.

The US Department of Labor finally began an investigation in 1924. However, at that time, the agency was pro-business, and also had no authority to stop harmful processes. About this time, the family of one of the gravely ill former radium painters notified the United States Radium Corporation (USRC) that it planned to seek compensation for the young woman’s illness. USRC decided to investigate after hearing from some workers who were quitting because they suspected the radium was making them and former workers sick. The Consumers League, a workers’ rights organization, meanwhile pressed the Department of Labor to investigate the women’s illnesses.

Five former dial painters in New Jersey sued the USRC in 1927. They testified in early 1928, but USRC sought adjournment until September. In June, the women accepted a settlement. Radium painters in Illinois tried to sue the Radium Dial Company in 1935. The company closed its plant, but reopened in New York, claiming that the company that had employed the workers was defunct. The women in Illinois won their case in 1938, but not before some of them died.

Decades after the dangers of radium were finally recognized, communities where radium paint was applied continued to wonder if the radiation is still affecting residents. For example, Ottawa, Illinois, was home to multiple radium dial painting operations. Some of the irradiated buildings were demolished, and the rubble was used as fill on sites where schools and other public buildings were constructed. Sixteen sites in and around the city were included in the Ottawa Radiation Areas Superfund site. In January 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its Community Involvement Plan to support environmental and clean these areas.

The experiences of the radium girls hold vital lessons in the US history of medicine, science, and labor practices. In 1968, the Center for Human Radiology was established, and scientists could conduct studies on many original dial painters to assess the long-term effects of their radium exposure. Further, as a result of the radium girls' exposure and subsequent litigation, they established the right of individual workers to sue large corporations. They also led to increases in workplace safety. Finally, references to radium girls have appeared throughout literature and popular culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 

Bibliography

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