During World
War I, U.S. Radium Corporation hired hundreds of young women to paint military
watch faces with its luminous paint, Undark.
The women were instructed to keep a fine point on their paint brushes by
licking or rolling the brushes against their lips. For fun, the women often painted their nails
or teeth for a glow-in-the-dark surprise.
The surprise was on
them. |
| U.S. Radium Dial Painting Studio |
Undark
was made in part from radium salts.
After years of being ill and searching for an attorney to take their
case, five fatally ill former employees of the Orange, New Jersey, factory,
dubbed the “Radium Girls,” sued U.S. Radium.
The case, including U.S. Radium’s cover-up, delays, and smear tactics,
was widely covered by the media. Running
out of time, the women settled their case shortly before most of them died. D.W. Gregory’s play, Radium Girls, is based on their story.
The discovery
of radium is attributed to Marie Sklodowska Curie (later Madame Curie) and her
husband Pierre Curie, who isolated radium chloride from uranium ore in 1898.
 |
| Madame Curie |
Uranium ore, also referred to as uraninite
and pitchblende, was a by-product (or tailing) of silver mining. Madame Curie and Andre’-Louis Debierne
isolated radium in its pure metallic state in 1910 or 1911. Madame Curie won two Nobel Prizes for this
work, and the common unit for the measure of radioactivity is called the
“curie.”
The isolated
substance was called “radium” because it emitted energy in the form of
rays. Radium is a heavy element, and its
atoms (or isotopes) are unstable. (For
reasons beyond this author’s understanding) because of this instability, radium
is luminescent and radioactive. It is
three million times as radioactive as the same mass of uranium. On the Periodic Table of Elements, radium
(Ra) is found in the same group or family as magnesium (Mg) and calcium
(Ca). The body may treat radium as if it
were calcium, absorbing it into the bones, where it the radioactivity degrades
the marrow and can mutate the cells of the bones. In general, however, radiation causes damage
to the body because it changes the chemistry of everything with which it comes
in contact.
Radium
isotopes emit radiation as alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays. Although not generally harmful to exposed
skin, when ingested (or swallowed), the high energy alpha particles collide
with tissues and cause damage to the body.
Beta particles can redden or burn skin but can be stopped by solid
materials. However, if ingested or
inhaled, beta particles travel deep into tissues and cause molecular damage. Gamma rays are essentially pure energy and
can pass entirely through the body (like X-rays), colliding with and energizing
atoms in the body. A lead apron or wall
is required to stop these rays.
The
connection between radium poisoning and the dial-painting industry was not made
until 1924 or 1925. It is now known that
the inhalation, injection, or bodily exposure to radium causes cancer,
necrosis, and other disorders. However,
in the 1910s and 1920s, radium was touted a miracle cure for all kinds of
ills. Radithor, billed as “liquid
sunshine,” was a radium laced water said to increase one’s vitality, sort of
like today’s Red Bull.
Gregory’s
play captures all of the physical, legal, and social hurdles the New Jersey
“Radium Girls” faced in trying to get compensation for their injuries. For a more indepth discussion of the history,
key players, and legal significance of the Radium Girls saga, read Kovarik and
Neuzil’s excellent article, listed below.
There are numerous other stories of the Radium Girls of Ottawa,
Illinois. Perhaps, the subject of
another play?
Environmental History Timeline: Radium Girls, by Bill Kovarik and Mark Neuzil, @ http://66.147.244.135/~enviror4/people/radiumgirls/
LaPorte v. U.S. Radium
Corp., 13 F. Supp. 263 (D. Ct. N.J. 1935).
Nanny Froman, Marie
and Pierre Curie and the Discovery of Polonium and Radium, @ http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/themes/physics/curie/
Periodic Table of Elements, @ http://periodic.lanl.gov/index.shtml;
see also http://periodic.lanl.gov/88.shtml
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