The Radium Girls: The Company Knew. They Kept Painting
Quick Answer
Who were the Radium Girls? The Radium Girls were factory workers in the 1920s who painted watch dials with radium-based paint and were told to point their brushes with their lips. The company, US Radium Corporation, had internal research showing radium was dangerous and hid it. Workers' bones fractured spontaneously, their jaws fell out, and their bodies glowed in the dark. When they sued, the company tried to delay until they died. Five of them won in 1928. The case established the legal right to sue employers for occupational illness.
The women painted their teeth with it to glow in the dark at parties. They painted their nails. Some painted their faces. The factory supervisors told them the radium would put roses in their cheeks. Management said it was safe. Company doctors said it was safe. None of that was true. US Radium Corporation had their own internal research showing the truth by 1924. They filed it and said nothing.
Lip, dip, paint
By the early 1920s, US Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey employed hundreds of young women to paint the dials on luminous watches and clocks. The paint was made with radium, zinc sulfide, and water. Each painter mixed her own supply in a small crucible. She used a camel hair brush, and she was taught the same technique from her first day: put the brush to your lips to shape the tip, dip it in the paint, apply it to the dial. Lip, dip, paint. Lip, dip, paint. They earned about one and a half cents per dial.
The glow was a novelty. Workers left the factory with luminous hair and clothes. Some went out at night showing it off. Katherine Schaub painted her teeth to surprise her boyfriend. She thought it was a party trick. The company did nothing to discourage this. It was good publicity.
A second factory operated in Ottawa, Illinois, run by a company called Radium Dial. Same work. Same technique. Same paint. Hundreds more women doing thousands of dials per shift, lips to brush, every single day.
What was happening inside
Radium behaves chemically like calcium. The body can't tell the difference. When radium is ingested, it settles into bone. Once there, it begins emitting radiation continuously from the inside. The bones around it die slowly, then fracture, then collapse. The process has no stopping point and no reversal.
The first woman to die was Amelia Maggia, in Orange, in 1922. She had been complaining of jaw pain for months. When her dentist tried to pull a tooth, her entire jaw came out of her mouth. It crumbled. Her death certificate listed the cause as syphilis. That diagnosis came from a doctor employed by the company. The syphilis claim was not a mistake. It was a strategy: destroy her reputation, eliminate her from the legal record, send a message to the other women about what would happen if they talked.
Maggia's sisters, Quinta McDonald and Albina Larice, were also dial painters. They also became sick. By the mid-1920s, women at the Orange factory were losing teeth, fracturing bones, developing severe anemia. Some could not walk. Doctors hired by the company examined them and found nothing wrong.
The lawsuit
Grace Fryer started looking for a lawyer in 1925. She spent two years being turned down before Raymond Berry agreed to take her case in 1927. By then she was wearing a metal brace on her back and a brace on her hand. Her hand shook too badly to hold a pen without support.
She was joined by four others: Quinta McDonald, Albina Larice, Edna Hussman, and Katherine Schaub. The five became known in the newspapers as the "Radium Girls." All five were dying. All five knew it. The company's legal strategy was to delay. They filed motions, requested continuances, challenged jurisdiction. The statue of limitations for personal injury ran from the date of first exposure, not from the date when someone discovered they'd been poisoned, which meant the women might already be time-barred from any recovery. The company hoped to run out the clock entirely.
A New Jersey judge finally pressed the case to settlement in 1928. US Radium agreed to pay each woman $10,000, plus $600 per year for as long as they lived, plus all medical and legal expenses. Grace Fryer died five years later. Amelia Maggia's body was exhumed as part of the legal proceedings. Her remains were still radioactive. Doctors measured radium levels at roughly 500 times what a human body could safely contain. The bones glowed.
Ottawa
The women at Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois did not have it easier. They had it harder. Radium Dial denied everything longer, fought harder, and settled for less. The lead plaintiff in Ottawa was Catherine Donohue. By the time her case went before the Illinois Industrial Commission in 1938, she was too weak to sit up. She testified from a stretcher. She could barely speak. She won. She died four months later.
The company appealed. The appeals continued after most of the plaintiffs were dead. The final settlement came years after the women who had started the case were gone.
What the company knew
US Radium Corporation had commissioned internal research on radium exposure by 1924, three years before Grace Fryer filed her lawsuit. The research showed danger. The company did not share it with workers, with doctors, or with regulators. They continued hiring dial painters. They continued teaching the lip-dip-paint technique. They continued telling sick employees that radium was good for them.
A company executive later said the women who worked in the factory were not their responsibility. The factory, he said, was well-ventilated.
If you buy clothes from a brand named Murder Apparel, you probably already know that corporations do not stop doing things because those things are wrong. They stop when they get caught, when they get sued, or when the cost of continuing exceeds the cost of stopping. The Radium Girls forced a new calculation: workers can sue. The precedent holds. The women who won it are buried in Ottawa and Orange and a handful of other places, and some of their graves are still faintly radioactive. If you want more on the long history of products designed for women that were quietly killing them, the post on how your makeup was trying to kill you covers a few centuries of the same pattern. Or the post on poison and the women who used it — though in that one, the women are the ones doing the poisoning, which is a different situation entirely.
The The Horrors Persist shirt is for people who know the horrors do not stop unless someone makes them stop. The full collection is for everyone else who's done the reading.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who were the Radium Girls?
The Radium Girls were factory workers, primarily young women, employed to paint luminous watch and clock dials using radium-based paint in the 1920s. The largest factories were US Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey and Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois. Workers were taught to point their brushes with their lips — the "lip, dip, paint" technique — and were told the radium was harmless. The company had internal research showing it was not. Workers developed radiation poisoning, bone necrosis, and jaw deterioration, and many died from their injuries.
What happened to the Radium Girls?
Workers ingested radium daily through the lip-dip-paint technique. Radium mimics calcium in the body and deposits in bone, emitting radiation from the inside. Workers developed severe anemia, spontaneous bone fractures, jaw necrosis, and cancer. Amelia Maggia, the first confirmed death, lost her jaw entirely and died in 1922. Her death was attributed to syphilis by a company doctor. Multiple women died. Others survived with permanent disabilities. In 1928, five New Jersey dial painters settled their lawsuit against US Radium Corporation. The Ottawa cases were fought and settled over a longer period.
Did the company know radium was dangerous?
Yes. US Radium Corporation had commissioned internal research showing radium was dangerous by 1924, before any lawsuit was filed. The company did not share this research with workers, doctors, or regulators. They continued the lip-dip-paint technique, continued hiring dial painters, and continued telling sick employees that their symptoms were unrelated to their work. Company-employed doctors attributed workers' illnesses to syphilis, rheumatism, and other conditions.
What did the Radium Girls win?
The five New Jersey plaintiffs settled in 1928. Each received $10,000 upfront, $600 per year for life, and payment of all medical and legal costs. All five women were already seriously ill at the time of settlement and most died within years of the case. The lawsuit established the legal precedent that workers could sue employers for occupational illness and contributed to the reinterpretation of statutes of limitations in such cases: the clock runs from the date of discovery, not the date of exposure.
Did the Radium Girls really glow?
Yes. Workers left the factory with radium dust on their hair, skin, and clothing, which caused a visible glow in the dark. Some workers painted their nails, teeth, and faces with the paint for novelty. The glow was considered a fun side effect and was not understood to be dangerous. When Amelia Maggia's body was exhumed years after her death, her remains were still radioactive and visible in darkness. Some graves of Radium Girls are still measurably radioactive today.
What was the Ottawa case?
Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois employed a separate group of dial painters who were also poisoned. The Ottawa women faced a more prolonged legal fight. The lead plaintiff, Catherine Donohue, testified before the Illinois Industrial Commission in 1938 lying on a stretcher, too ill to sit upright. She won her case and died four months later. The company appealed, and litigation continued after most of the original plaintiffs had died. The final settlement came years after the women who had brought the case were gone.
