Plant worker Grace Fryer decided to sue, but it took two years for her to simply find a lawyer willing to risk taking on U.S Radium. The story of the labour abuse perpetrated against the workers is distinguished from most such cases by the fact the ensuing litigation was covered widely by the media. Then the long agonizing legal process of proving culpability and obtaining compensation begun. At the urging of the companies, worker deaths were attributed by medical professionals to other causes syphilis was often cited in attempts to smear the reputations of the women. For some time, doctors, dentists and researchers complied with the requests from the companies not to release their data. Like other watch-dial companies they rejected claims that the afflicted workers were suffering from exposure to radium. It turned out at least one of the examinations was a ruse, part of a campaign of disinformation started by the employer, U.S Radium. Primitive x-ray cameras bombarded some of the sickened workers with additional radiation when they sought medical attention for the many aliments that ensued. Anemia, bone fractures and necrosis of the jaw and rotting of the jaw bone became further effects. There was osteomyelitis of the upper and lower jaw. X ray photos showed serious bone decay in her mouth and back. Grace Fryer had been one of the first to work in the job in 1917, quit in 1920 and by 1922 her teeth started falling out and her jaw developed a painful and disfiguring cancer. The longer term medical effects of this didn’t start to be realized until into the early 1920’s. After a few strokes it would lose its shape, and they were instructed to “repoint” the brushes with their lips, usually about 6 times per dial. The girls mixed up glue, water and radium powder into a glowing greenish-white paint and painted onto the dials with a fine camel hair brush. The women even painted their nails and teeth to surprise their boyfriends when the lights went out. None of the women had any doubts that the paint was harmless. The deadly march of time had now begun for these women.ĭial painting was enjoyable work with comparatively high wages (up to $42.00 per week). With this background, by 1917, the watch-dial factories employed thousand of young ladies, many from the china painting industry, to carefully over paint the watch or clock numerals or battens and hands with radium paint. Medically, a quackery fad for radium was happening in the 1920’s, which included radium water as a vitalizer, radium injections and pills, creams, and suppositories.Īs you can see a lot of people were swept along with the supposed positive benefits of this new product. It was advertised and recommended in it’s day for all kind of uses including watches, clocks, door bell buttons, theatre seat numbers, gauges, even fish bait etc. The base material, pitch-blende, was mined in Colorado and Utah and it takes 15 tons of pitch-blende to produce one gram of radium in the form of a salt. In 1914 Dr Sabin Von Sochocky discovered the luminous paint formula and founded the Radium Luminous Material Corp (N.Y City) and sold the product under the name “Undark”. Whereas an estimated 4,000 unprotected workers were hired in the U.S & Canada to paint watch faces with Radium. The Chemists with the U.S Radium Corporation used lead screens, masks and tongs. I want to pursue the social, medical and legal consequences for the Dial Painters who unwittingly worked with this dangerous radio luminescent substance Radium, whilst the owners of the factories and their scientists carefully avoided any exposure to themselves. I don’t want to spend much time on the physics of radioactivity, or it’s earlier developers Pierre and Marie Curie (who died of Leukemia in 1898) as time doesn’t permit. Hundreds of women died, suffered life-long illnesses and grotesque disfigurement from their exposure to Radium, which is present only in uranium one. The history of mostly woman dial-painters that created these wonderful luminescent dials is one of huge tragedy, deceit and arrogance by large corporations. This was a glow of a luminous paint formula which included Radium, a radio-active substance. In regards to the 7 displayed, death and disability has always lurked in both the painted hands and numerals.Īs a boy I can remember snuggling under the blankets in my dark bedroom and marveling at the beautiful greenish glow of my wristwatch. I have a long held passion for collecting watches and clocks, some of which I have brought along this evening. This is the transcript of a talk that Terry gave to the Auckland Medical History Society on 2nd August 2007.
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