(Chicago Daily Times, 1937)
The Radium Girls triumphed over their tragic circumstances. Even as they lay dying, they fought for change and compensation for injury. Their persistence in raising public awareness of the dangers of radium strongly influenced policies concerning labor laws, workplace safety, and scientific understanding of radiation.
Dial-painting firms of the 1920s had modeled their operations on artists' studios and involved fairly casual management of workers, but the model factory in 1943 patterned itself after a tightly supervised laboratory. Dial painters labored at individual booths, each equipped with ventilation systems, and engineers and inspectors regulated their attire, work routines, and hygiene [...] At hiring, and twice each year thereafter, workers received physical examinations and tests for radioactivity. If company doctors found them likely candidates for radium poisoning, or if tests showed that they retained more than one-tenth of a microgram of radiation, it was general policy to dismiss dial painters or to rotate them to less dangerous jobs.
- David Rosner, Gerald E. Markowitz, Dying for Work: Workers' Safety and Health in Twentieth-century America, 1987.
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Over 2,400 U.S. studies were conducted on individuals with radium poisoning, most being former dial painters. One MIT study on the Radium Girls evaluated radium tolerance in humans; it was used by the National Bureau of Statistics.
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Research based on the Girls alerted Manhattan Project scientists of radium's dangers.
If it hadn’t been for those dial-painters, the [Manhattan] project’s management could have reasonably rejected the extreme precautions that were urged on it and thousands of workers might well have been, and might still be, in great danger. |
As I was making the rounds of the laboratory rooms this morning, I was suddenly struck by a disturbing vision [of] the workers in the radium dial-painting industry. |
Further research on the effects of radium led to the development of arthritis and cancer treatments, radiometric dating, aspects of aircraft controls, and lightning rods.
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The case of the Radium Girls illustrated the need for government oversight in the workplace, and strongly supported the passing of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. It still remains the presiding workers' safety law.
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I could't say that I'm happy, but at least I'm not utterly discouraged. I intend to make the most out of what life is left me. My body means nothing but pain to me, and it might mean longer life or relief to the others, if science had it. it's all I have to give. Can't you understand why I'm offering it? |
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Grace Fryer's and Marguerite Carlough's victory over the USRC was a momentous step forward for labor safety. For the first time in American history, an employer was required to pay for their workers’ medical treatment as a result of negligence.
The Radium Girls suffered horribly through cancer, massive tumors, severe bone decay, painful jaw necrosis, gum disease, and fatal anemia. Nevertheless, their tragic misfortune paved the way for more responsible health standards and conditions for workers across all fields, as well as advancements in medicine and technology that continue to save lives. Furthermore, their struggles ended the widespread use of radium in everyday products and mitigated future radium-related injuries/deaths. Without their story, dangerous working conditions and the use of lethal radium would have plagued the United States for much longer.
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