Who Were The Radium Girls?

Radium-infused paint that glowed green in the dark was once a trendy feature for wrist watches. Negligent factory managers knew it could be harmful - but told their working-class women employees it would “put roses in their cheeks”. After suffering horrific illness and injuries from radiation poisoning, the young dial painters fought for justice against corporate executives in an uphill legal battle as well as a race against time as their bodies deteriorated.

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STILLS
Curious Curies
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Antique photograph of the British Empire: Women working in cycle factory
ilbusca/Getty Images
Directly Above Of Old Fashioned Pocket Watches In Shop
Appu Shaji / EyeEm/Getty Images
Antique photo: Businessman group portrait
ilbusca/Getty Images
Close up of old glass bottles for medicine
EujarimPhotography/Getty Images
Wilbur Wright Hudson-Fulton Celebration
Bettmann/Getty Images
Full Frame Shot Of Airplane Cockpit Control Panel
Samuel Fenart / EyeEm/Getty Images
Marie and Pierre Curie in their lab
Marie Curie visiting with two scientists on street in Pittsburgh
Old engraved illustration of human jaw with Milk-teeth
mikroman6/Getty Images
Old engraved illustration of human jaw with teeth
mikroman6/Getty Images
1930s italian woman portrait playing piano
lcodacci/Getty Images
Vintage photograph of a young woman
Tolga TEZCAN/Getty Images
Young woman in 1915
Lisa-Blue/Getty Images
Woman in 1920
Lisa-Blue/Getty Images
Young woman in 1920
Lisa-Blue/Getty Images
1920s italian indoor woman portrait
lcodacci/Getty Images
Portrait of young woman in 1915
Lisa-Blue/Getty Images
Young Woman in 1915
bgwalker/Getty Images
1920s italian family portrait
lcodacci/Getty Images
Black and white photo of caring mother leaning over her baby
tobntno/Getty Images
Italian emigrant family in New York in 1920
Buena Vista Images/Getty Images
Wartime Morse Code Communications
cjp/Getty Images
Young Woman in 1920.Black And White
Lisa-Blue/Getty Images
Vintage photograph of a young woman
ArtMarie/Getty Images
Group of People in 1910.Sepia Toned
Lisa-Blue/Getty Images

VIDEO
Defocused sun glare on black background HD 1920x1080
Alexander Bashkirov/Getty Images
A vintage scientist picks up a bottle of radium to study.
JHDT Stock Images LLC/Getty Images
Scene dollies right to vintage scene of a bottle of radium on a desk.
JHDT Stock Images LLC/Getty Images
XX century military luminous watch time-lapse
bobuz/Getty Images
Green Magical Ink Clouds
Spencer_Whalen/Getty Images
Gavel sitting on juridical paperwork contract
ersen_cira/Getty Images
Background mask with damaged frame effect of old film with scratches and flicker 4k
Alexander Bashkirov/Getty Images
Various clocks looped as time flow concept animation
Shaiith/Getty Images
Fashion model`s hands painted green shows gestures. Fashion Video.
borealisgallery/Getty Images
Background with green bright rays from the light
KinoMasterskaya/Getty Images
Chest x-ray and gases.
Blooms-Studio/Getty Images
MRI scan. Human brain.
MADDRAT/Getty Images
Watchmaker assembling watch
selected-takes/Getty Images
Soft bristle brush picking up paint.
FilmColoratStudio/Getty Images
Stylish holographic foil reflections, pixel noise, tv damage effect
Anton Moskovchenko/Getty Images

[Monicalia]

Imagine having your jaw broken off completely from just touching it, poor girl, I can't imagine how terrified she must have been :((

[nggirl]

Not them marketing it as a "cure all" for ugliness 😭

[adinafriedman]

Love how nothing got done until a man died even though women had suffered for so long, only to be silenced by the companies who were greedy and didn't care about the women who suffered every day.

[KE-owjg]

Did he just say that over 50 women died and they didn’t feel the need to investigate - but as soon as a 1 man died they decided that was the last straw 😐 can’t say I’m surprised...

[asksomeoneelse]

A woman was dying of radiation poisoning and the doctor prescribes her aspirin? Sounds about right.

[jaxintheboxoxo]

Not so fun fact: when the radium companies moved to different locations to avoid bad press after all this happened, they had to get rid of the radioactive tailings piled up in the backyards of their factories. Wanna know where it went? They sold in at a discounted price to sandbox companies who mixed it in with their sand and sold that to schools/parks for their playgrounds. If your family has lived in America for a while there’s a good chance your grandparents played in radioactive sand on their school playgrounds. And the companies knew about this. This was AFTER the deaths and the lawsuits. They just didn’t care. And we’re still paying the price for their selfish greed

[astrowolvez]

And it’s crazy how she carried radium with her everywhere and to this day no one can even read her notes because they’re so radioactivez

[JanelleNilesComedy]

The imagery of the jaw-bone taking out without surgery because it was floating necrotized in the abscess, gave me chills.

[broadwaybrat]

It’s incredibly horrible what happened to these women! Especially knowing that some of the employers knew how harmful radium was.

[cruellworrld]

this really makes you think about things now a days that can be dangerous but corporations brand as fine

[randihutchison]

Imagine knowing how toxic/dangerous something is but then encouraging/forcing your employees to put it in their mouth.

[amym]

Did Buzzfeed really just not credit/name the narrator in the description?

He's very talented and it's a shame we only know who he is because he's here in the comments.

[RolyWestYT]

I honestly don’t know how we’ve managed to survive this long when you hear stories like this and other things in history we did that basically killed us

[erinturner]

I live in that Illinois town, LaSalle-Peru. I work in a nursing home and my residents lost their mothers and aunts and sisters to friends to Westclox. Some of my OLD oldies actually worked there and remember the riots and strikes. It runs so deep.
The snow doesn’t stay on the victim’s graves. It becomes a pink/purple slush.

[Moriartea_chan]

I'm so f angry that they started doing the investigation only after the male employer 's death.

[JamesTroupActor]

Hey everyone, it’s THE VOICE behind these videos. Just wanted to say thanks for listening, and I hope you all learned as much as I did while doing this one!

RIP Radium Girls…

[jaxintheboxoxo]

Not so fun fact: as the video mentions, after some time the radium girls would glow “from the inside out”. One of the ways this manifested was in their eyelids, they were so bright when they closed their eyes they couldn’t fall asleep and sleep deprivation was common among the girls

[StarWarsThrowbacks]

Side note: I really like this dude’s voice. It’s perfect for a podcast or audio book.

[lylanewman]

the fact that investigation wasn’t started until a male employee died just kinda gives me a sad reminder of how men are just always placed before women.

[bio.sophia]

RIP radium girls, thank you for fighting for worker's rights and standing up for the health of women working in these factories everywhere.