The Women Who Glowed in the Dark
In the aftermath of World War I, a curious sight could be observed in certain American towns - young women whose hair, skin, and clothes emitted an eerie blue-green glow as they walked home after their factory shifts. These were the “Radium Girls,” factory workers employed to paint watch and clock dials with radium-infused paint that illuminated in the dark. The U.S. Radium Corporation, Radium Dial Company, and other firms employed hundreds of these women in facilities across New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut. Their story represents one of America’s most tragic industrial disasters - a cautionary tale of corporate negligence, scientific ignorance, and the human cost of progress.
The painting technique taught to these women, mostly teenagers and young adults, required them to “point” their brushes by placing them between their lips - a practice called “lip-pointing.” Each time they did this, they ingested a small amount of radium. Management assured them the substance was harmless - some workers even painted their teeth and faces with it for fun, delighting in how they would glow at parties. This luminescence, once seen as magical, would become the visible manifestation of their slow poisoning.
The Deadly Science: Radium’s Invisible Danger
Radium, discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898, was initially celebrated as a miracle element. By the 1920s, radium was incorporated into numerous consumer products: radium-infused water, chocolate, toothpaste, and suppositories. Its luminescent properties made it particularly valuable for military equipment and watches. The element was marketed as a health tonic, with “Radithor” water promising to cure everything from impotence to rheumatism. The public’s fascination with radium was fueled by its mysterious glow and purported healing properties.
What wasn’t understood at the time was radium’s devastating biological impact. Radium has a half-life of 1,600 years and behaves chemically similar to calcium in the human body. When ingested, it replaces calcium in bones, continuously irradiating the surrounding tissue from within. The results were horrific - the women began experiencing spontaneous bone fractures, their jawbones disintegrated (a condition called “radium jaw”), tumors developed, and many experienced anemia as their bone marrow was destroyed.
Most disturbing of all, their bodies became radioactive. When Amelia Maggia, one of the first victims, was exhumed five years after she died in 1922, her remains still glowed in the dark. The radiation was so powerful that it could expose photographic plates through wooden boxes. Some women reported that their handkerchiefs would glow when they blew their noses in the dark. Their breath contained radon, a radioactive gas produced by radium’s decay.
The suffering was excruciating. Mollie Maggia, Amelia’s sister, experienced such severe deterioration that her entire lower jaw was removed. Grace Fryer’s spine collapsed, shrinking her height by several inches. Teeth fell out spontaneously, accompanied by pieces of jawbone. The women experienced chronic pain, immobility, and disfigurement before their premature deaths.
The Legal Battle: Fighting Corporate Deception
As workers began falling ill around 1922, the companies denied any connection between the mysterious ailments and radium exposure. U.S. Radium Corporation went further, hiring experts to publicly declare radium’s health benefits while privately commissioning studies that confirmed its dangers - studies they subsequently suppressed. Company doctors diagnosed the women with syphilis, implying moral failings rather than workplace hazards were to blame for their conditions.
In 1925, Dr. Harrison Martland developed a groundbreaking test that proved radium poisoning was the cause. Five women from the Orange, New Jersey plant - Katherine Schaub, Edna Hussman, Albina Larice, and sisters Quinta McDonald and Grace Fryer - decided to sue. Legal representation was nearly impossible until attorney Raymond Berry took their case in 1927. The women faced enormous obstacles - statutes of limitations had expired, and they had limited financial resources to fight powerful corporations.
The “Radium Girls” lawsuit became a landmark case in labor safety rights. The women’s plight captured public attention, with newspapers dubbing them “the living dead.” After years of legal battles and delays, U.S. Radium Corporation finally settled in 1928, providing financial compensation and covering medical expenses for the plaintiffs. Though many of the women died before receiving justice, their legal victory established precedent for worker protection laws and directly influenced the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The case also established the right of workers to sue corporations for labor-related illnesses.
Similar legal battles played out in Ottawa, Illinois, where women working for Radium Dial Company faced identical health issues. Catherine Donohue, barely able to walk and weighing only 65 pounds, testified from her deathbed. Her victory in 1938 came just days before she died.
Legacy: Scientific Advancement Through Tragedy
The tragedy of the Radium Girls paradoxically advanced scientific understanding of radiation. Their cases provided the first documented evidence of radiation’s long-term effects on the human body, helping establish safety standards for the Manhattan Project scientists who would later develop atomic weapons. The women’s suffering led directly to the establishment of radiation exposure limits and handling protocols.
The women’s bodies themselves became scientific resources. Robley Evans, a physicist at MIT, studied the women for decades, measuring the radium in their bodies and tracking its effects. His research established the first safety standards for radium exposure and laid the groundwork for current radiation protection guidelines. The Center for Human Radiobiology was established in 1969 to study the long-term effects on radium dial painters who survived.
Perhaps most importantly, the Radium Girls case transformed workplace safety in America. It established that employers, even those with delayed onset, are responsible for occupational diseases. It introduced the concept of “time to file” extensions for workers whose illnesses develop years after exposure. It also demonstrated that industrial safety knowledge must be shared with workers, not concealed from them.
Conclusion: An Enduring Warning
These former radium factories remain contaminated today, with several designated Superfund cleanup sites by the EPA. The last known Radium Girl, Mae Keane, who briefly worked at a Connecticut clock factory, died in 2014 at age 107. She narrowly escaped the fate of her colleagues by disliking the taste of the radium paint and thus refusing to point her brushes with her lips.
The story of the Radium Girls serves as a powerful reminder of the human cost of industrial progress when untempered by ethical considerations and regulatory oversight. Their suffering led directly to safer workplaces for future generations and established important legal precedents that continue to protect workers. Their legacy lives on not only in labor laws and scientific understanding but also as a cautionary tale about the dangers of prioritizing profit over human life and the importance of questioning authority when worker safety is at stake. The women who once glowed in the dark continue to illuminate essential truths about corporate responsibility, scientific ethics, and the courage to stand up for justice.