So many people today don’t know or understand their past, and don’t appreciate how sweet they have it, even in bad times. The Radium Girls were working and literally glowing until dat bad ol’gubmint stepped in and ruined the whole laissez faire party. Here’s another instance where government regulation interferes in the marketplace and stifles the creation of wealth. wordslinger - Tuesday, Sep 6, 11 8:10 am: I watched the video (which came in at 1 hr 45 min), which was fascinating to me. bored now - Tuesday, Sep 6, 11 7:16 am: It takes a few minutes to get going, but check out a 1987 documentary made about the case… It also led to several environmental law changes, both here in Illinois and nationally. * The “Radium Girls” case sparked a rise in worker safety and compensation laws throughout the country. These areas include homes, public areas, schools, and even a car sales lot that is housed directly over the old Radium Dial Company site. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study outlining areas where contamination by radium-226 (Ra-226) as well as emissions of radon-222 (Rn-222) are at above normal levels. * The contaminated factory building was even used as a meat packing plant for decades…īetween 19, the original Radium Dial building was used as a meat packing plant and was later occupied by Farmers Co-op.Ī contaminated site on the outskirts of town still needs to be remediated, a process that could take up to five years at a cost estimated over $80 million dollars. building was demolished, people took bricks from the site to reuse and desks from the factory were donated to area schools, Sack said, spreading the contamination. Luminous Processes continued to make watch dials with radioactive materials until the 1970s, when it was shut down by nuclear regulators for mishandling tritium.Įven after the Radium Dial Co. The Ottawa Radium Dial Studio was shut down amid lawsuits in the 1930s, but it re-opened under a new name, Luminous Processes, with some of the same management. After the local media took notice, the company shut down, then reopened under a different name… * Yet, this practice continued for many, many years. When women started becoming sick, company doctors said they had syphilis, typhus and pneumonia. * And when they fell ill, company doctors deliberately lied to them… They suffered from excruciating bone pain from fractures, crippling anemia as the radiation killed blood-forming cells in their bone marrow, and various cancers. Their teeth fell out, their jaws shattered. Investigators would later measure the radioactivity in the bones of long-dead dial painters to prove that they had been poisoned.Īs the dial painters ingested more and more paint, their skeletons crumbled from within. However, if the material is swallowed, it permanently insinuates itself into the skeleton, where it continues to emit radiation for the rest of the victim’s life, and indeed long after she is dead. The radium they were using emits low-energy radiation, which bounces harmlessly off the skin. The girls entertained themselves by playing with the “harmless” paint, decorating their nails and teeth with the luminous mixture. An instructor once made a show of swallowing some just to prove the point. The women were told that the paint-a mixture of glue, water, and radium powder-was harmless. Within three years, company officials learned that radium paint was toxic and threatened the workers - but wouldn’t disclose this. The Radium Dial and Processes factories were started in 1922. The female workers were told that licking the brushes would be good for their complexions, even after company officials knew the radium was poisonous… It was an instruction that sickened and killed many of Fuller and Mennie’s co-workers. Women who worked at Radium Dial applied glow-in-the-dark paint to watch and clock hands and were instructed to lick the brushes to keep the ends pointed for precise painting. * So, why would the women workers be singled out for this honor? Because, as the LaSalle News-Tribune tells us, the company essentially ordered the workers to kill themselves… Many died of radium exposure from using their lips to hone their paintbrushes. The women painted glow-in-the-dark watch dials using radium-laced paint. The Radium Girls memorial honors the women who worked at watch-painting plants for Radium Dial and Luminous Processes in the early 20th century. Here’s a prime example for Labor Day…Ī northern Illinois city has paid tribute to former factory employees who worked under dangerous conditions. * The Associated Press is infamous for shortening stories to the point where they lose all meaning.
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