Because the true nature of the radium had been kept from them, the Radium Girls also painted their nails, teeth, and faces for fun with the deadly paint produced at the factory. The brushes would lose shape after a few strokes, so the USRC supervisors encouraged their workers to point the brushes with their lips ("lip, dip, paint"), or use their tongues to keep them sharp. The rate of pay, for painting 250 dials a day, was about a penny and a half per dial (equivalent to $0.343 in 2022). At USRC, each of the painters mixed her own paint in a small crucible, and then used camel hair brushes to apply the glowing paint onto dials. and Canada to paint watch faces with radium. Īn estimated 4,000 workers were hired by corporations in the U.S. Harrison Martland, County Physician of Newark. The similar circumstances of their deaths prompted investigations by Dr.
Despite this knowledge, a number of similar deaths had occurred by 1925, including USRC's chief chemist, Dr. USRC itself had distributed literature to the medical community describing the "injurious effects" of radium.
Chemists at the plant used lead screens, tongs, and masks. Radium Corporation (USRC) hired approximately 70 women to perform various tasks including handling radium, while the owners and the scientists familiar with the effects of radium carefully avoided any exposure to it themselves. Their plant in Orange, New Jersey, employed as many as 300 workers, mainly women, to paint radium-lit watch faces and instruments, misleading them that it was safe. Radium was a major supplier of radioluminescent watches to the military. The ore was mined from the Paradox Valley in Colorado and other "Undark mines" in Utah. Radium Corporation, originally called the Radium Luminous Material Corporation, was engaged in the extraction and purification of radium from carnotite ore to produce luminous paints, which were marketed under the brand name " Undark". Main article: United States Radium Corporation 1921 advertisement for Undarkįrom 1917 to 1926, U.S. Five women in Illinois who were employees of the Radium Dial Company (which was unaffiliated with the United States Radium Corporation) sued their employer under Illinois law, winning damages in 1938. The women were instructed to point their brushes in this way because using rags or a water rinse caused them to use more time and material, as the paint was made from powdered radium, zinc sulfide (a phosphor), gum arabic, and water.įive of the women in New Jersey challenged their employer in a case over the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers under New Jersey's occupational injuries law, which at the time had a two-year statute of limitations, but settled out of court in 1928. The incidents occurred at three factories in the United States: one in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917 one in Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s and one in Waterbury, Connecticut, also in the 1920s.Īfter being told that the paint was harmless, the women in each facility ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine tip some also painted their fingernails, faces, and teeth with the glowing substance. The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials – watch dials and hands with self-luminous paint.
For other uses, see Radium girl (disambiguation). This article is about the factory workers.
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