Glowing in the dark, dying in the light

Marie and Pierre Curie, Polish and French chemists, discovered radium in 1898, which won them the Nobel Prize, but cost them their lives. Radium is a highly radioactive element and can be extremely dangerous.

However, it was once used in many everyday products, including wristwatches and toothpaste, and thought to have curative properties until its intense radioactivity was found to cause adverse health effects.

The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint at the United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey, around 1917.

The women, who had been told the paint was harmless, ingested deadly amounts of radium by licking their paintbrushes to give them a fine point; some also painted their fingernails, face, and teeth with the glowing substance.

A dial painter could paint up to 300 dials per day earning as much as $24 a day. But a dial painter could point her brush up to 15 times per dial this meant that the average painter consumed approximately 4,000 micrograms of radium in six months, a 1000 times deadlier than the smallest potentially lethal dose.

The 1920s saw a number of dial painters begin to complain of ill health and slowly the women’s symptoms were associated with their work with radium. The women were suffering from advanced radiation sickness with symptoms ranging from anaemia to the horrifying disintegration of the jaw bone which came to be known as ‘radium jaw’.

Plant worker Grace Fryer sued the company along with five others, and the suit became an important one in history for its relevance to health and labour rights.

The inventor of radium dial paint, Dr Sabin A. Von Sochocky died in November 1928, becoming the 16th known victim of poisoning by radium dial paint. He consistently denied that his invention had been the cause of the deaths of the Radium Girls.

Jane was impressed by all the hustle and bustle around her. New Jersey seemed a wonderful place to live and work, a far cry from her country home in Nevada, where only the mines offered abundant employment. It was the year 1919, and the First World War had just ended.

While the rest of the world was reeling under the effects of the war, America was far from it. America’s industries and factories were safe; demand had increased greatly, and so had production. Business seemed to be booming, and she could see busy shops and factories everywhere, and workers hurrying to their place of work. It definitely looked like she would find a good job in New Jersey.

“How long will you gape open-mouthed, Jane?” asked Katherine, Jane’s friend, who had brought her there. She took another deep puff from her cigarette before speaking again. “This is just the town of Orange. What will you say when you see the entire state?”

Jane was too tongue-tied with awe to reply immediately. “I say, Kat, this is a swell place. I’m beginning to believe there are good times ahead for us.” “Well, of course there are”, replied Kat confidently. “Come along now, or I’ll be late too.”

Kat hurried along, taking long strides. She walks in style, though, thought Jane, glancing down at her own plain appearance. Kat looked every bit the modern woman in her checked shirt and trousers, with a red scarf at her throat, and her face made up with blush and lipstick. Jane felt quite conscious in her drab grey woolen dress that almost came down to her ankles. “Exactly what am I supposed to do at this factory where you work?” Jane asked panting, struggling to keep up with Kat. She worked at the United States Radium Corporation.

“Oh, it’s easy enough”, said Kat. “All you need to do is paint the watch dials with the glow-in-the-dark paint they give you. It’s the in thing now, glow-in-the-dark watches.”Jane was stupefied. “And they pay 8 cents apiece for this? Is that all I need to do?” Jane couldn’t believe it. It was very good money, for such a simple job.

“That’s all”, answered Kat. “And we paint up to 300 watches everyday. So you can imagine how good it is.”
Jane looked around her, and found that what Kat said was true. Radium, or the metal that made stuff glow in the dark, seemed to be everywhere. While one sign said, “Radium watches, so you can outshine time”, another said, “Radithor- the radium drink: to get back your youthful energy!” A medicine shop had a banner outside proclaiming the great qualities of Radione, “the wonder drug that gave ordinary water life-giving properties.”

Jane quietly followed Kat into the factory, where she met some of Kat’s friends who worked there too. “You can watch us at work today. See how simple it’ll be”, they assured her.

Jane sat down at an adjoining table, while Kat took her place on the assembly line along with the other girls. There was a huge can of radium paint there, which they used to paint the watch dials with. They laughed and talked as they worked, and Jane started to feel that it was the best job in the world for a poor, uneducated girl like her.

“This is really a nice job”, she said, as she came to know the others better. “And being with you all makes it feel like heaven.”

“Oh, it’s nice and easy alright”, said Grace, another worker there, as she carefully painted a 6 on the watch dial, licking the paint brush at intervals to get a sharp pointy end. “But if I smudge the numbers, I might get a good licking from old Smith, our supervisor. Which is why I got to lick the brush!” she joked, while the others laughed.

“Is Mr. Smith that bad?” asked Jane, a bit apprehensive.
“Nah, he isn’t. He just can’t stand sloppiness or bad work”, said Edna, another friend of Kat’s. “So he’ll shout his head off, and threaten to fire you, but nothing more than that.”
“I’ll speak to Mr. Smith about the job in the evening”, thought Jane.
As the girls worked, a few people passed their room, wearing whitish silver coats and helmet-like head gear. “Who are they?” asked Jane, puzzled by their outfit.
The other girls giggled. “Scientists, they say”, chucked one. “Working hard day and night. And what do they invent? Glow-in-the-dark paint!” Peals of laughter followed.

But why were they wearing such protective gear, thought Jane. But she was soon distracted by the lively discussions among the girls. “We use this paint to paint our nails too”, said one. “I once painted my teeth with it”, said another. “What a scare I gave my landlady when I smiled at her in the dark!”

Just then, Mr. Smith walked in. Jane stood up in a hurry, all flustered. But unfortunately, she knocked off the can of paint that was on the table.

“How dare you?” screamed Mr. Smith. “Who even let you inside? Out! Out this minute!”Jane hurried outside, not having the courage to argue.

That evening, she waited outside till Kat came out. “He’ll never give me a job now”, she wailed. “I suppose I better look for a job elsewhere.”

Kat, unfortunately, had tried reasoning with Smith, and had failed. So Jane was on her own again. She went from factory to factory, and at last found a place in a cloth-dyeing factory.

A couple of years passed. Jane was surprised to get a letter one day from Grace. “Katherine is dying”, it said. “Come visit her while you still can.”

Horrified, Jane rushed to the apartment where the girls had been staying. She was shocked to find her stylish friend Kat in a way she couldn’t even imagine— her jaw was almost eaten away! The other girls all looked sick and haggard as well. What ever had happened?

“One of the girls died at the factory”, said Grace. “We were all sick too— and we found it was due to radium poisoning. But I suppose it’s too late now.” She sighed.

“But you can’t let the factory off like that! Did they tell you that paint was poisonous?” “They didn’t”, said Edna. “our hands started to glow in the dark first. We thought it was just the powder on the skin. Abigail, her bones crumbled and disintegrated…” Edna broke down. “But what you said is right Jane”, said Grace suddenly, “we must fight for justice.”

And then started a long –drawn legal fight with the Factory, with Grace at the head of it. Jane tried her best to be there for the girls, but the poisoning was too strong. They won the case, but suffered too much, too soon. Jane couldn’t forget the day she had dropped the can of paint; the mistake had saved her a speedy burial in a lead-lined coffin.