Joining the 20th century workforce meant enduring some truly jaw-dropping occupational hazards — all because people liked seeing their watches glow in the dark. And you thought your job had a toxic workplace.
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00:00Joining the 20th century workforce meant enduring some truly jaw-dropping occupational hazards,
00:06all because people liked seeing their watches glow in the dark.
00:08And you thought your job had a toxic workplace.
00:10By now, modern industry has done a decent job vetting hazardous elements we might accidentally
00:15come in contact with in the workplace.
00:17Lead was slowly removed from paint starting in 1960, although it still exists in certain
00:22paints today.
00:23We all know that handling mercury with our bare hands is a dumb idea, although some cosmetic
00:27products still contain it.
00:28In the late 1800s, arsenic pills hit the market as a way to beautify skin, only to cause arsenic
00:34poisoning.
00:35We mix together quicksilver, arsenic, and butter, and then we smear it on our scalps.
00:42Radium is another lesser-known example of a toxic metal that once made its way into
00:46household goods.
00:47In the early 1900s, businesses cropped up across the United States that used radium
00:51paint.
00:52The chemical element glows in the dark, the kind of nifty gimmick that still catches people's
00:56attention nowadays.
00:58It's also naturally radioactive and sheds alpha particles, a byproduct of some radioactive
01:02elements.
01:03In fact, it's so radioactive that today it's used to treat some types of cancer that spread
01:07to the bones.
01:08One hundred or so years ago, though, radium's toxicity wasn't well understood.
01:12Back then, radium girl factory workers applied radium-infused paint to clock and watch faces.
01:17They used their lips to make the tips of their paintbrushes fine enough to apply detailed
01:21paintwork.
01:22And over time, those women suffered a host of horrific diseases, even having chunks of
01:27their jaws fall off.
01:28Ultimately, these women died one by one.
01:31Most were buried, but at least two, Peg Looney and Molly Maggia, were exhumed for research
01:35purposes.
01:36Radium must have seemed like a miracle product.
01:38Some product labels even boasted,
01:40"...made possible by the magic of radium.
01:42Its glow was its allure."
01:44Aside from appearing on clock and watch faces, it was touted as an aphrodisiac, beautifier,
01:49and even medicine.
01:50By the time radium girls started dying, manufacturers were in too deep and didn't want to lose money.
01:55Even as the women succumbed to poisoning, manufacturers denied that there were any problems.
01:59Molly Maggia was the first radium girl to die at the age of 24 in 1922.
02:04Her mouth wouldn't stop bleeding, her breath turned rank, and her jaw started to rot.
02:08Eventually, it had to be removed.
02:10Other radium girls across the U.S. suffered similar fates, including bone decay, cancer,
02:15joint problems, hemorrhaging, pregnancy issues, and much more.
02:18By 1927, over 50 such women had died.
02:21These women were employed by several radium-based companies, including the U.S. Radium Corporation
02:26and Radium Dial Company.
02:27But because they worked at a variety of factories across the United States, they were buried
02:31in various cemeteries across the country.
02:33Not all of their grave locations are known, but Find a Grave has a list of 19 burial sites
02:38across 11 cemeteries in New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut.
02:41"...I want to tell you about radium.
02:45A most peculiar and remarkable element."
02:50French physicist Marie Curie discovered the existence of radium and its radioactive properties
02:54in the late 1890s, a couple of decades before radium girls started getting sick and dying.
02:59Folks knew that lead blocked radiation, and we know that at least one radium girl, Peg
03:03Looney, was buried in a lead coffin in 1929.
03:06There's no information about the types of coffins in which the other radium girls were
03:10buried.
03:11Looney, like Maggia, was later exhumed for research purposes.
03:14As Kate Moore writes in The Radium Girls,
03:16Each and every portion of tissue and bone tested, the doctors concluded, gave evidence
03:20of radioactivity.
03:21Maggia was later returned to a resting place in Rosedale Cemetery in Orange, New Jersey.
03:26A writer for Road Trippers reported visiting the Maggia sisters' graves, carrying a Geiger
03:30counter to test radiation levels in the areas where they were buried, but said there were
03:34no increases in radiation from nominal, typically ambient, levels.
03:37According to the Royal Society of Chemistry, a few of radium's isotopes decay in as little
03:42as about three and a half days.
03:44Radium-226, however, the isotope used to paint clocks and watches 100 years ago, has a half-life
03:49of around 1,600 years, but its alpha particles can only travel about an inch, per the Washington
03:54Department of Health, which explains why a Geiger counter wouldn't detect any radiation
03:58above a radium girl's grave.