EP 146: The Radium Girls

This week on Hashtag History, we will be discussing the Radium Girls. The Radium Girls refers to the female employees of a radium factory that contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials and hands on watches. The women were instructed to use their lips to make the bristles of the paintbrush form into a fine point that would then be used to paint radium onto the watch faces. Lip-dip-paint over and over again, each time, ingesting small amounts of radium.

This sounds wild…because it is. But in late-1920s when all of this was happening, the common belief was that radium was not only harmless, but that it also had healing properties. Maybe even further than that, radium was also thought to be…fun. The women at this factory became known as “ghost girls” because the radium dust particles would fall off onto their clothing, making them glow in the dark. Some of these women wore their best dresses to work so they could purposefully make their dresses illuminate. Some women even painted their nails and their teeth with the radium, not knowing any better.

Now, of course, these poor women would start to show signs of illness. Things like anemia, bone fractures, and something else that would eventually become known as “radium jaw”. Because of the amount of radium these women were ingesting directly into their mouths, their mouths began to decay at a rapid, rapid pace. Toothaches turned into tooth extractions. Tooth extractions turned into ulcers. Multiple ulcers all at once. In perhaps the worst story I read while doing my research, one woman in particular had to have multiple teeth removed but was still in severe pain. When she went to the dentist to have him check her out again, he gently placed his fingers in her mouth…and her jaw literally fell off. It just melted off. The dentist removed her jaw, “Not by an operation, but merely by putting his fingers in her mouth and lifting it out.”

This would ultimately lead to a lengthy legal battle between the women and the U.S. Radium Corporation, who denied responsibility, and would – of course – ultimately lead to the untimely and painful deaths of many of the women involved.

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- Rachel and Leah