Women experienced gruesome side effects from radioactive paint, but the employers refused to take responsibility

Radium was discovered at the end of the 19th century by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie. However, it was many more years before the deadly effects of the chemical element would be documented. One of the major cases that led to the danger of Radium being uncovered was that of the “Radium Girls.”

Their story is a harrowing and frustrating one as it would take many years and plenty of unnecessary casualties for companies that made use of radium to finally admit that it was a dangerous substance which had caused many deaths. One famous golfer even died after drinking over a thousand bottles of the stuff only to have his jaw fall off.

Radium and its many uses

After its discovery in 1898, radium started being used in a variety of products including toothpaste and even cosmetic products. It also glowed in the dark which made it perfect to use in paint and on things that someone may need to look at without any lighting.

It was during the first world war that numerous factories across the U.S. began producing watches and military dials painted with material containing radium. During that period, many women were employed by the factories to do the job of painting the watch faces with the material. 

According to Britannica.com, these women became known as “ghost girls,” as they would leave the factory literally glowing from the radium they had been working with all day. Many women would wear their best dresses to the factory so they would glow when they went dancing after work. Others put radium on their teeth.

Even those who didn’t intentionally cover themselves in the radioactive product couldn’t escape as it was standard practice to use their lips to bring the brushes to a fine point so they could paint the small numbers on the watch faces.

The Radium Girls start falling ill

One of the first to begin experiencing symptoms of radiation poisoning was Amelia “Mollie” Maggia, who experienced a toothache which required the removal of said tooth. Pretty soon the tooth next to it began to ache and that was removed too, then she developed painful ulcers where the tooth had been. Eventually it spread through her entire mouth and lower jaw which ended up being removed. She died in 1922, but bafflingly, doctors determined her cause of death to be syphilis.

Of course, more and more Radium Girls began going through the same thing Amelia went through but their employer denied the fact that radium was the cause for a further two years. Eventually an independent study was commissioned by the employer which determined radium to be the cause. Still the company denied the findings and commissioned another study which had the opposite conclusion, this was used to decry those who had fallen sick.

More studies were done that conclusively determined radium to be the cause and yet employers using the substance refused to acknowledge it and continued to make use of it until 1938 when Catherine Wolfe Donohue, who was dying from radiation poisoning, successfully sued Radium Dial Co.

The case has led to a change in workplace safety but what’s important to remember is how hard many of these Radium Girls fought to get their voices heard despite an uncaring employer knowingly putting their lives in danger.