RADIUM GIRLS

RADIUM GIRLS

Another topic under discussion at the 8 am Wescoats Corner & Five Points Arby's coffee

group, Saturday morning the 23 of March, 2019, is ' The Radium Girls ' , known in

the 1920's, and needing instant research.

The radium girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation while painting

watch dials with luminous paint in Orange, New Jersey, Ottawa, Illinois and

Waterbury, Connecticut.

The women workers had been instructed to ' point ' their brush with their lips to get a fine

point and were told the paint was harmless. The ' paint' was made from powdered radium,

gum arabic and water. The New Jersey women sued in 1928 and the case was settled ' out

of court' and the Illinois women won a suit in 1938.

The luminous paint material is extracted and purified from Carnotite ore mined at Paradox

Valley, Colorado and other mines in Utah. Near 4000 women were painting watch faces with

radium for payment of one penny and a half to lip, dip and paint for each of 250 dials

a day. Most of these workers later suffered anemia, fractures, necrosis, but the ailment was ignored.

Litigation was difficult, no lawyer wanted to take on the big radium company and the courts were slow to review the cases which when heard were appealed, appealed and appealed.

In 1939 the U. S. Supreme Court refused ti here the case.

The five workers who were known as ' The Radium Girls ' were Grace Fryer, Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub and two sisters Quinta McDonald and Albina Larice.

Abstract: WIKIPEDIA