"On the 20th of April, 1902, after years of hard work, Marie and Pierre Curie successfully isolated a brand new element: radium..."
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LearningTranscript
00:00On the 20th of April, 1902, after years of hard work Marie and Pierre Curie successfully
00:18isolated a brand new element... radium. It was thought at the time that this new material
00:26might have all kinds of beneficial properties, and so radium was swiftly incorporated into a
00:31huge range of products, everything from makeup to ceramics to health tonics and jewelry.
00:39What wasn't understood at this time was that radium was in fact quite deadly.
00:46The popularity of radium shortly after its discovery cannot be overstated. Radiation
00:52was something that wasn't well understood at the time, but which had positive associations.
00:58It was understood that radiation could be used to kill cancerous cells,
01:02but the damaging effects it had on healthy cells weren't fully appreciated. Added to this was the
01:08fact that radium glowed, a visible effect that was quite extraordinary at the time and which
01:14led many to believe that it must surely have some almost magical health-giving properties.
01:20Picking up on this, quack doctors were quick to promote radium as invigorating and curative.
01:28With this incorrect belief firmly entrenched, radium was soon included in everything. You could
01:34buy chocolate and other snacks laced with radium, or purchase a radium-coated crock in which to
01:40store your drinking water. Radium was added to makeup, to skincare products, to toothpaste and
01:47other toiletries. It was available to buy in the form of radium plasters, radium ointment,
01:53radium syrup, and even radium suppositories, medicines that were touted as treating every
01:59ailment imaginable. You could even visit radium spas where you would be exposed to the material
02:05in radium-infused baths and saunas. As the world descended into World War I, another use for radium
02:14came to the forefront. When infused into paint it would make that paint glow in the dark. This made
02:22it an ideal material for coating watch faces, control panels, and instrument dials. Radium
02:28provided much-needed illumination for soldiers in the field without them having to rely on lamps
02:34or other bulky equipment. From 1917 the demand for radium-coated dials skyrocketed, which was good
02:43news for the United States Radium Corporation. The company had been in the business of extracting
02:49and processing uranium for a few years. Now it expanded to mixing and applying radium-infused
02:56paint, a substance which they called Undark. With the war effort requiring an extraordinary number
03:04of luminous dials business boomed. Within a year there were facilities in several states, including
03:12a plant in Orange, New Jersey, which specialized in the painting of dials. Many local women were
03:18pleased to secure a job at this facility. It was considered good work. It was well paid, the
03:26conditions were fairly pleasant compared to other jobs, and it was skilled and respectable work.
03:32On top of all that, of course, it was perceived as not being overly dangerous, certainly when
03:38compared to working in a munitions factory. All things considered, it was no surprise that many
03:44local people were employed as dial painters. The typical work of a dial painter was simple but
03:52painstaking. They would be supplied with radium paint and freshly stamped dials, and had to use
03:58paintbrushes to strategically apply radium to the parts of the dial which needed to glow.
04:04Precision was required, and so workers were instructed to lick the tips of their brushes
04:10in between each application in order to bring the bristles to a fine point. In addition to this,
04:17workers were under the impression that working with radium was a perk of the job. The stuff was
04:23considered, by the general public at least, to be health-giving rather than dangerous, and indeed
04:30some people paid a lot of money to visit radium spas or purchase radium-infused products.
04:37The workers at the United States Radium Corporation had access to the stuff for free,
04:42and so they used it, painting their teeth and nails to give them a pleasant glow before heading
04:48out to dances in the evenings. Years passed. Hundreds of thousands of dials were painted
04:55and shipped out. The war ground on and eventually came to an end, much to the relief of the general
05:02population. But all was not well for the ex-workers of the United States Radium Corporation.
05:09Slowly, one by one, dial painters were falling ill. As the 1910s became the 1920s,
05:17hundreds of women who had worked as dial painters over the last few years
05:21started noticing pain in their teeth and jaws. Many were having to visit their dentists on a
05:27regular basis, and were losing teeth with each and every visit. They were constantly exhausted
05:34and in pain, and in some cases it was found that their jawbones were riddled with holes, reduced
05:40to a brittle, hollow honeycomb. Despite this alarming wave of sickness, few were able to
05:48persuade anyone to take their ailments seriously. Indeed, when 22-year-old Molly McGeer passed away
05:55after years of pain in her jaw and teeth her condition was written off as syphilis. The
06:02complaints of many other women were glossed over with the same explanation, despite symptoms that
06:08pointed to something quite different and more sinister. It was 1925 before any of the workers
06:16came to understand the devastating effect that the radium had had on their bodies. Grace Fryer
06:23had once been a dial painter. Now her body was quite literally falling apart. The bones of her spine
06:31crumbled and required a metal brace. Tumors and abscesses sprouted in her jaw and she was in
06:38constant pain. The radium she had ingested while working had riddled her with cancer and weakened
06:45her bones. It would soon end her life. Furious, Grace and four of her colleagues moved to sue
06:54their ex-employer. For two years, however, no lawyer would take them seriously, despite their
07:01steadily worsening conditions. It was 1928 before the suit was finally filed. By this time the demand
07:10for radium was on the decline, as people woke up to the dangers of radiation. Sales of radium-infused
07:17products fell still further when newspapers around the world printed details of Grace's story.
07:25The United States Radium Corporation did everything it could to avoid responsibility,
07:30including using a range of delaying tactics to draw out the suit in the hope that Grace and
07:35her colleagues would die before it could be resolved. At the same time they quietly issued
07:42workers with protective equipment and advised against the practice of licking brushes to point
07:47them. It was the very definition of too little too late, especially considering that scientists and
07:54upper management at the corporation had been using protective gear around radium for years by that
08:00stage. By the end of 1928 the case had been settled in favor of the women workers. They were
08:08awarded some compensation, although it was only a fraction of what they had initially demanded.
08:14Their medical bills at least were covered, and they were able to live out their final days with
08:18some measure of dignity. Many more suits followed, from workers not just at the United States Radium
08:26Corporation but at a number of companies which had handled radium in the years after its discovery.
08:32While Grace Fryer and her colleagues are remembered for leading the fight against
08:37the injustice that was done to them, there were thousands more workers whose fates varied
08:41enormously. Some radium girls died young, unable to persuade anyone to take their ailments seriously.
08:49Some lived longer lives and battled cancer in their old age. Some prevailed in their fight for
08:56compensation, and some did not. Though many of the radium girls suffered enormously and died before
09:03their time, their deaths were not in vain. Many radium girls volunteered for tests and medical
09:10examinations in later life, allowing us to understand for the first time exactly how radiation really
09:17affects the human body, something which directly persuaded scientists to take greater precautions
09:24in later experiments with nuclear weapons, and thus potentially saved many thousands of lives.
09:32In addition to this, the case pushed forward by the radium girls was the very first in which an
09:38employer was forced to take responsibility for the health and safety of its employees.
09:44This was a revolutionary concept in 1928, but, thanks in part to the work and sacrifice of the
09:51radium girls, it is now something that most workers, in theory at least, have a right to expect.
10:13So
10:32you