Physicist Elizabeth Hughes tested the radioactivity present in the Radium Girls and found that all five had measurements so high their breath had become toxic.Īs the trial garnered worldwide attention, Radium Corp had no choice but to settle out of court. Throughout the trial, damaging information came out about just how harmful the radium exposure was. Through their plight for justice, they became known as the Radium Girls. Grace Fryer, Katherine Schaub, Albina Larice, Quinta McDonald and Edna Hussman banded together to sue Radium Corp for exposing them to lethal radium poisoning. Wages were higher than the average factory job and so word quickly spread, attracting new employees every week.Īt first, doctors thought Amelia had died from syphilis, but as more of her former colleagues began to display similar symptoms, they connected the dots.Īs more people became gravely ill or died from radium poisoning, a handful of brave women came forward to fight the factories they once worked for. Working in these radium factories was a lucrative job for young women. It then became a popular material used to make devices glow in the dark - a particularly helpful tool during the war. In 1918, it even became a hit in the beauty industry, with companies selling radium as a way for women to keep their skin 'radiating' with youthfulness. It quickly became a cure for various other things, including hearing loss, chronic otitis in children and acne. Radium was first discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie and was used to treat cancer after it was discovered that radiation could kill living cells. It was at these seemingly innocuous factories where a hellish fate awaited innocent workers who tirelessly painted watch dials, clocks and various other wartime instruments with lethal radium paint. They were the Radium Girls, and this is their story.Īt the beginning of the 1920s, radium dial factories became popular across the US, in particular, in the states of New Jersey, Illinois and Connecticut. They were slowly poisoned by their employers. Years later, we now know how and why these people suffered. These were the terrifying symptoms of a mystery illness that swept the US in the 1920s. Necrosis of the jaw as the bones and flesh began to rot. Fragile teeth breaking away chip by chip.
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