Radium Girls & the Failure of Unregulated Capitalism

#radium #RadiumGirls #latestagecapitalism
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Music:
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
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Chick Webb - Blue Lou, Clap Your Hands, Don't Be That Way, Go Harlem
Fats Waller - Loveless Love, Go Down Moses, Love Me or Leave Me, Savannah Blues, Star Dust, Tea for Two, That's All, Tiny's Tempo

Jimmy Dorsey - Chimes Blues
Django Reinhardt - Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup, Hands Across the Table,
Count Basie - Exactly Like You, Fare thee Honey Fare thee Well,
Bix Beiderbeck - In a Mist,
Thelonius Monk - In Walked Bud
Dizzy Gilespie - One Bass Hit Part 2, Ow!,
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Sources:

[1] Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

Table of Contents:
Intro: [0:00]
What makes Radium so Dangerous?: [4:17]
The Dial Painters of US Radium: [8:46]
Exploitation & Lies: [14:51]
The Living Dead Lawsuit!: [25:49]
The Radium Girls of Ottawa: [34:33]
Legacy: [47:17]
Injustice!: [51:23]
Conclusion - What Comes Next?: [59:14]

[Meromorphic]

Hope you guys enjoy this one! Very different from my normal stuff. I'll be going back to Unpacking videos and other such after this! One small correction: Mae Keane was an employee of Waterbury Clock Co. in Connecticut, not Radium Dial. (Of course only realized the error after uploading 😢)

[feathersfororphans]

Christ. Can the algorithm show this man some love already?

[amyjones]

And then, the Supreme Court repeals the Chevron Act...

[galileo_the_star_lion]

11:02 all the 'roommates' 😐

but on a serious note, regulations are written in blood. people have died horrible deaths for us now to have safer working environments.

[harrietharlow]

This is an excellent overview of the history of the Radium girls and the effects of radium on the body. The callousness of the companies once the danger was known is stunning. And getting doctors to diagnose deaths as caused by syphilis--horrendous. Wow and a sister who didn't even work at the factory dying of radiation sickeness just because she slept next to her suster who was a dial painter?! This just keeps getting worse and worse. It's hard to hear, but thank you for an excellent report.

[emer]

WHEN I FOUND OUT FLINN WAS ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR LEADED GAS. WHEN I GET U FREDDY WHEN I GET U

[Mari-pqzy]

I was so jazzed to see the radium girls of Ottawa mentioned. I live there, a few blocks away from a statue that memorializes the women and their story.

[cloudypianos]

Hi @Meromorphic glad you did this story. A few important things you got wrong. The first picture of “Catherine Donahue” was actually Grace Fryer, a spitfire who led the case with Berry in NJ/NY. You may be thinking of Catherine Wolfe (later Donahue) and you did get the correct photos later. There were also three not five doctors assigned to keep an eye on the original women who sued the Orange, NJ company. And in Ottawa, Peg Looney was not at home at death but instead taken to a “company hospital” to die alone (her family denied entry) and a friend of the family had fight to get her body from the hospital. They then agreed to the autopsy with a company doctor as long as the family doctor was there but of course as you said they tricked them by doing the autopsy before the family doctor arrived. Her boyfriend never got over it and mourned her every year around her birthday even after marrying and settling down with someone else. Nobody took radium poisoning serious until a wealthy playboy died from the “healing radium water”. :/ Lip pointing was only practiced in the USA and kept long after it was found lethal because of profit…crazy that it took until 1949 for workplace compensation legislation to be corrected.

[noahmarquis]

How dare youtube hide this video from me for almost TWO YEARS. Very captivating video.

[LauraSilveria-yf]

My grandmother came to our country in 1909 from Portugal, and settled in Massachusetts. She obtained a job in a textile mill in the early1920’s and worked there until the late 1970’s. She not only inhaled vast amount of textile fibers but asbestos as well. She was diagnosed with Mesothelioma in 1987 and lived only 6 months after diagnosis. Her oncologist said she literally had black lung disease just like a coal miner from working in these mills. I mis you Vovo.

[alliematt]

Joy Gresham (later married to CS Lewis - their story is the basis for the movie Shadowlands) had radium treatments for a thyroid condition. She ended up dying of cancer in 1960.

[Hunnie_Bunnie]

great video! loved the voice-overs for the letters and statements of the time, and I was wondering who were the ladies that spoke in such parts, but the description didn't state any credits (? I'm so curious!
Edit: Wait, my bad 🤣, I didn't realize it was at the end of the video. At 1:04:45 if anyone else is curious :))

[greekandbulgariangamertv]

That an interesting topic if you ask me also think some times of how many stuff that we today say are bad for our health back in the day they think it was perfectly healthy or at least not that could cause a health related illness it makes me wonder what staff do we day use today that in the future will find that it is actually bad for us in the end of the day we are not that different with the 20s we are both parts of history that that will one day become the past and in the future people will call as stupid

[catherinea.]

you wouldn’t think that it’s like this, but the US Department of labor does a similar tactic, where they will try to stretch out the Worker’s Comp. cases laid against them in hopes that the client will die before compensation. It’s sick and twisted

[katyo]

I was lucky enough to be cast as Charlotte Purcell in a play about the radium girls called These Shining Lives. Watching this as character work. Thanks for this!

[khaosreigns]

5:00 damn radium is such transition goals u-u

[joannejoannerodemer]

I read the Radium Girls and it was hard to put down. It reads like a novel. Kate Moore’s other nonfiction book is also excellent. IThe title is The Woman They Could Not Silence.

[ThornyRoseV]

Comparing people who were lied to by their employes, doctors and lawyers to addicts is disgusting. Im in pain all the time. Have had a disability for 14 years. I dont misuse my pain medication. Its not hard.

[joeport]

Recently saw a play about Radium Girls, was fantastic and extremely brutal.

[spleerfloof]

It’s not the “phenomena of radioactivity…” It’s the phenomenon of radioactivity. NEVER FORGET THAT.