Radium in the Roaring Twenties, was a new kind of miracle substance that captivated America, promising not just a faint, ethereal glow but a newfound sense of vitality and health.
Discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898, radium was initially hailed as a miracle substance, marketed in products like cosmetics, toothpaste, health tonics, and even food items, believed to cure ailments from cancer to impotence.
Its most prominent use was in glow-in-the-dark paint, like *Undark, applied to watch and clock dials, compasses, and military instruments.
This paint, made by mixing radium with zinc sulfide, was especially in demand during and after World War I for its ability to glow without sunlight, unlike fluorescent paint.
The Radium Girls
The young women who worked with it were known as the Radium Girls.
They were employed in factories across the United States, meticulously painting the luminous dials of watches with radium-based paint.
To achieve the delicate brushstrokes needed, they were instructed to lip-point — shaping the fine brushes with their mouths, unknowingly ingesting the deadly radioactive material with every pass.
They were told the substance was harmless, even beneficial, and often left work glowing faintly in the dark, a silent testament to the poison they carried.
Health Effects
The promised glow, however, hid a horrific reality.
As the years passed, the radium began to wreak havoc on their bodies from within.
Their bones began to crumble, their jaws rotted, and they suffered from severe anemia and cancers that doctors could not yet diagnose.
When the women began to sicken and die, their employers denied any connection, altering medical records and bribing doctors to cover up the truth.
The companies that had celebrated their beauty and skill now turned their backs on them.
La Porte v. United States Radium Corporation
It was only when a few courageous survivors, facing unimaginable pain and imminent death, took their fight to court that the truth began to emerge.
Their landmark legal battle against the U.S. Radium Corporation in the late 1920s became a turning point in American history.
The Radium Girls not only exposed the lethal greed of a powerful industry but also laid the groundwork for modern labor laws and workplace safety standards.
Their story is a haunting and tragic reminder of the human cost of corporate indifference, but it is also a powerful testament to the resilience of those who, with their final breaths, fought for justice and forever changed the world for the better.
sources —
La Porte v. United States Radium Corporation, 13 F. Supp. 263 (D.N.J. 1935)
