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The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials – watch dials and hands with self-luminous paint.

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. After 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. 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. The Radium Girls had lasting effects on the labor laws in the United States and Europe due to numerous lawsuits filed after worker deaths and illness caused by ingestion of radium.

From 1917 to 1926, the United States Radium Corporation (USRC), 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".

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. 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. By 1927, more than 50 of the female factory workers had died from radium poisoning caused by the paint used.

In the early 1920s, the United States Radium Corporation contacted Cecil Kent Drinker and his wife, Katherine Rotan Drinker, from the Harvard School of Public Health to examine the Orange, New Jersey, factory to determine why several employees had fallen ill. He had gotten sick from radium in his hands, not the jaw, but the circumstances of his death helped the Radium Girls in court.

Dials painted in Ottawa appeared on Westclox's popular Big Ben, Baby Ben, and travel clocks; and the Radium Dial Corporation hired young women to paint the dials, using the same "lip, dip, paint" approach as the women in New Jersey (also used in another unaffiliated plant in Waterbury, Connecticut, that supplied the Waterbury Clock Company). Employees at Radium Dial began showing signs of radium poisoning in 1926 and 1927 and were unaware of the hearings and trials in New Jersey. Furthermore, Radium Dial leadership authorized physicals and other tests designed to determine the toxicity of radium paint to its employees, but the company did not make the records or results available to employees. The co-founder of the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation (RLMC), George Willis, lectured the women on the supposed safety of radium.

The five factory workers involved in the suit were dubbed "the Radium Girls" – Fryer, Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub, Quinta McDonald, and Albina Larice.

Mabel Williams, who died on July 23, 2015 at age 104, was among the last surviving Radium Girls, having worked as a painter at Radium Dial.

The book used data from Radium Dial painters, people who were exposed as a result of the use of radium-containing medical products, and other groups of people who had been exposed to radium.

Gregory wrote a play titled Radium Girls that follows Grace Fryer and the lawsuit in New Jersey. In 2017, Kate Moore published The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women, a narrative account of the women.

Katherine Rotan Drinker and Cecil Kent Drinker, physicians who researched the Radium Girls

Radium Girls: Women and industrial health reform, 1910–1935.

Quick Facts

• The Radium Girls had lasting effects on the labor laws in the United States and Europe due to numerous lawsuits filed after worker deaths and illness caused by ingestion of radium.
• From 1917 to 1926, the United States Radium Corporation (USRC), 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".
• After 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.
• Mabel Williams, who died on July 23, 2015 at age 104, was among the last surviving Radium Girls, having worked as a painter at Radium Dial.
• 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.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Radium Girls". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.