(Priscpo, 1922)
In the early 20th century, thousands of young women painted watch dials with radium-based luminous paint (branded Undark). These women, the 'Radium Girls', were unaware of any danger for over a decade. They unwittingly ingested radium daily by routinely licking their delicate brushes into a fine point.
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The Radium Girls most notably worked in factories around Orange, New Jersey (owned by the U.S. Radium Corporation (USRC)) and in the Midwest (owned by Radium Dial Company). By the 1920s, as many as 4,000 women worked in companies to paint radium dials.
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I removed her jawbone, not by an operation, but merely by putting my fingers in her mouth and lifting it out […] whenever a portion of the affected bone was removed, instead of arresting the course of the necrosis, it sped it up.
- Joseph Knef, Maggia's dentist
In September 1922, the peculiar infection that had plagued Mollie Maggia for less than a year had spread to the tissues of her throat. The disease slowly ate its way through her jugular vein. On September 12, at five p.m., her mouth was flooded with blood as she hemorrhaged so fast that Edith could not staunch it. [...] She died, her sister Quinta said, a ‘painful and terrible death’. |
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Grace Fryer was the driving force behind the 1927 suit against the U.S. Radium Corporation. Her little sister also detailed dials, but was dismissed for slow painting. Unfortunately, Grace was not "lucky" enough to be fired, dying at 34.
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I thought that this was merely a touch of rheumatism and did nothing about it.
- Grace Fryer, June 1923
When I first found out what I had, and learned it was incurable... I was horror stricken... I would look at people I knew and I would say to myself, ‘Well, I’ll never see you again.’ |
I always thought that was funny: the person who did the wrong thing, supposedly, ended up living to be an old lady. |
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We really don't want our factory workers to be the guinea pigs for discovery. 'Oops' is never good occupational health policy.
- Mae Keane
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Margaret Looney worked at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa Illinois. She died in 1929.