![]() ![]() The companies needed workers to do the painting, and advertised in local newspapers - specifically requesting young women - and offered the opportunity for large wages. When mixed with other substances, it created a radium paint that could be applied using thin brushes. The substance that they used to create this glow was the newly-discovered radium. The companies - United States Radium Corporation in Orange, NJ and the Radiant Dial Company and Luminous Process Corporation in Ottawa, IL - enjoyed lucrative contracts with the US government, providing glow-in-the-dark watches and other products for use during wartime. The end result brought about the creation of a new governmental department, focused solely on protecting workers health and safety. ![]() What follows is an exhausting story about a massive and long-lasting cover-up scheme undertaken by the radium companies, and how the girls fought against it. When the girls began complaining about strange pains, growths, and bone problems, they were either fired from their jobs, or were told that the symptoms were syphilis, hysteria, or some "female" complaint. ![]() The companies knew that radium was a dangerous substance, but never disclosed that information to the painters. The Radium Girls is a brilliant, shocking, humanistic, and enraging story about young women who were unknowingly poisoned with radium at their jobs as watch dial painters during and after WW1. ![]()
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