By 1927, more than 50 other women had suffered similar fates-in addition to crumbling teeth, collapsed spines, foul breath, pregnancy complications, aching joints, unexplained weight loss, extreme exhaustion, and brutal hemorrhaging-all of which were eventually determined to be caused by the women’s repeated exposure to, and ingestion of, radium. “Later studies showed that the radium had actually bored holes in the women’s bones while they were alive-a horrifying and agonizing reality,” says Kate Moore, author of The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women. “Yet when presented with these women in dire pain, aspirin was initially deemed an appropriate analgesic.”Ī glowing clock face. Radium Corporation had insisted that its product was safe. After Marie Curie and her husband discovered radium in 1898, it had been heralded as the new cure-all and was added to toothpaste, water, food, and cosmetics-with little regulation sometimes it was enough just to say your product contained radium, which was costly to obtain. The dial painters were grateful for their well-paying jobs and took pride in working with an exciting new substance. They would intentionally paint parts of themselves so they glowed, or wear their best dresses to work in hopes that they would shimmer all night long.Īmelia ‘Mollie’ Maggia’s grave in section 8 of Rosedale Cemetery. | Photo: Alexandra CharitanĪlthough the glow would last far longer than anyone expected, the excitement of working with radium did not. In 1927, five dial painters filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Radium Corporation, despite the odds not being in their favor.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |