Morbid - Episode 591: The Radium Girls

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

When Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium in 1898, the chemical element was quickly adopted by manufacturers for its luminescent properties that would go on to be used in, among other things, the painting of clock faces, watches, and instrument panels, allowing them to be seen in the dark. At the time, the introduction of radioluminescent materials into manufacturing was hailed as a scientific solution to an age-old frustration, but it didn’t take long before that solution was shown to have terrible consequences.    As a radioactive element, radium is highly toxic to humans, particularly when ingested or inhaled. While it seemed unlikely that anyone would ingest or inhale the radium used to paint a clockface, this fact posed a serious problem for the largely female factory workers whose job it was to paint the dials. These “Radium Girls,” as they would come to be known, not only spent most of their day in close proximity to the paint, but also employed a technique in which they frequently wet their paintbrushes with their mouths, consuming small amounts of radium in the process. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, hundreds of young women working in at least three radium dial factories in the United States suffered deadly radiation poisoning as a result of working so closely with radium, all without any safety protocols and completely unaware of the dangers. After dozens of deaths, a group of factory workers successfully sued their employers for damages, exposing the widespread disregard for worker safety. While the suits were generally a major victory for the American labor movement, it was ultimately hard-won and little comfort to those who would die within a few years.Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!ReferencesCamden Courier-Post. 1928. "Woman radium victim offers living body to aid in search for cure." Courier-Post, May 29: 1.eGov Newswire. 2021. "Menedez leads colleagues in introducing senate resolution to honor the lives and legacy of the 'Radium Girls'." eGov Newswire, June 26.Evening Courier. 1927. "Radium poison victims want damage suit limits raised." Evening Courier, July 19: 2.Galant, Debbie. 1996. "Living with a radium nightmare." New York Times, September 29: NJ1.Lang, Daniel. 1959. "A most valuable accident." New Yorker, April 24: 49.McAndrew, Tara McClellan. 2018. The Radium Girls: An Illinois Tragedy. January 25. Accessed July 8, 2024. https://www.nprillinois.org/equity-justice/2018-01-25/the-radium-girls-an-illinois-tragedy.Moore, Kate. 2017. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women. New York, NY: Sourcebooks.New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. n.d. Radium Girls: The Story of US Radium’s Superfund Site. Environmental Preservation Snapshot, Orange, NJ: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.New York Times. 1928. "Finds no bar to suit by radium victims." New York Times, May 23: 11.Prisco, Jacopo. 2017. "Radium Girls: The dark times of luminous watches." CNN, December 19.United Press. 1928. "Woman, dying by degrees, tells of symptoms of radium posioning." Courier-News, May 16: 6.—. 1928. "3 more are victims of radiun poisoning." Evening Courier, May 22: 1.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Morbid early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities and new ways of thinking. Audible has the best selection of audiobooks without exception, along with popular podcasts and exclusive Audible originals all in one easy app. Enjoy Audible anytime while

you do other things, household chores, exercising, on the road, commuting, you name it. Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your everyday routine, without needing to set aside extra time. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. I'm Dan Tuberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. What's the answer? And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head? Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios.

Binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey, Weirdos! I'm Ash. And I'm Alaina. And this is morbid. I don't even know why I sang it. It just started happening and I went with it. Ash is scunty.

Yeah. I believe the word you're looking for is scunty. It's scary and cunty. Me and Mikey have determined that she shall remain as such today. That was my Diet Coke opening because that's a scunty behavior. She is in a place of scunt right now. Serving scunt. Scunt, scunt, scunt. Truly, truly serving scunt. We did magic this morning and I... We did. Why are you laughing? That's the truth.

What? She's just like, I don't know. We just did magic this morning. There's more to it. There's more. We did magic this morning and we did manifestations. And I manifested self-love and light and abundance. And I'm feeling all of those things. She's feeling abundant. I think because mine went crazy. It did go crazy. And I think it just reignited my scunty soul. It said, baby, party on, player. I think it's supposed, is it astrologically there's some bullshit happening?

Chiron's in retrograde. Exactly. I don't know if it's Chiron or Chiron, so come at me, bro. Is that good or is that bad? I think that's pretty bad. Oh, OK. That makes sense. Let me do a little Google. Do a little goog. I need to get it under wraps. Do a little googie.

Yeah, it just went into retrogride. Oh, I'll tell you what it means for you and your astrological sign. Not all of you, but Capricorn's a Gemini. Yeah, let's go. Except the cookies, because that's the only thing you're allowed to do in life. I always accept cookies in reality. Yeah, obviously. So considered an asteroid and a comet, Chiron-Chiron begins its annual retrograde on July 26th.

It will take place as Chiron-Chiron is positioned in the first zodiac sign of Aries, where it has been since 2010. And it's going to last until the day after your birthday, Elena. Oh, the day after your birthday. The day of your birthday, Elena. So for me, Chiron Chiron Retrograde holds a mirror to the medicine within you. Medicine for yourself, which when claimed becomes medicine for all. Like Chiron Chiron's mythological journey, retrograde is an invitation to step

into the role of healer and observe how your experiences and the gold you have gleaned from them are your offering to the world. I like it. I don't know if it resonates, but whatever. Are you Gemini? No, Capricorn. Chiron Chiron is a doorway between the spiritual and the human. And for the last six years, Chiron Chiron, six years, we've been doing the podcast for

six years. Whoa. Hopefully that's I haven't read ahead. So yeah, I don't know what this is. Has been cracking open the foundations of who you are so that you can remember yourself as this doorway. This retrograde invites you deep within traveling with you down into your roots, formative years and earlier memories.

There is medicine here waiting for you. And I'm the medicine. Oh my goodness. Take a dose bitch. Just a spoon full of sugar. Also just to say who I was reading that from. I was. Oh that would be my tagline.

I'm the medicine. Take a dose bitch. There it is. You found your housewives. Let's go. T-shirts, where are they? T-shirts. Just to give credit where credit is due. That was from the Yoga Journal. Thanks, Yoga Journal.

You're welcome. So all you Capricorns and Germanas out there, now you know that one of you is the medicine and the other one needs it. Wait, what a beautiful outside glance at our relationship. I love that. Sometimes you're the medicine though. I hope so. Sometimes.

I don't always need the medicine. You don't always need me? No, I'm asking like, I'm like, okay, good. I'm not the one that always needs the medicine. No. That's good. Sometimes. No. A lot of the time, I needs the medicine. No. That's good. Sometimes. Sometimes.

No. A lot of the time I need the medicine. Well, speaking of medicine and speaking of, you know, scientific advancements in medicine, we're going to talk about the radium girls today. The radium girls. Yes. So that is a seed. Did you see that segue?

We're talking about medicine and science and chemical elements and shit. It's there. But we're going to talk about the Radium Girls today, everybody. This is a little different. It's a different true crime. My tummy's growling. I don't know if anyone heard that. It's digesting the eggplant.

It is. I had eggplant. But this is a little different case because it's not like... Is it like dark history sort of? Yeah. It's definitely, you know, most people would say a crime has occurred here. Yeah. You told me a couple of things and it sure sounds like it. But a different kind. So let's get into it, shall we? So we're going to start off first by kind of giving a brief, you know, look into what

radium is. Because I don't know if I know. Without understanding radium, this isn't going to hit as hard. I mean, it's going to hit, but you're going to be like, what the fuck is that? So in 1898, after spending years researching the radioactive nature of mineral pitch blend, of which uranium is a major element, Polish-French scientist, you might've heard of her, Marie Curie. Marie Curie?

Madame Curie. I thought that sounded familiar. And a hobby, Pierre. Pierre! Pierre! They concluded that the pitch blend contained at least two other previously undiscovered chemical elements. One of these elements was radium.

Now a lot of elements on the periodic table are freely occurring elements. Radium is not one of those. A freely occurring element is an element that is not combined with or chemically bonded with other chemical elements. But radium instead is a byproduct produced in the decay of uranium, another radioactive element. Oh, okay.

That's interesting. See, so radium requires a very long process of isolation in order to be extracted. In fact, with the help of her laboratory assistant, Andre, I hope I say this right, Debiere. Madame Curie required several tons of pitch blend before she was able to extract just one tenth of a gram of radium. So it was incredibly rare. So Curie's discovery of radium was notable for many reasons. One of the biggest was that it proved that there were other elements in nature that were

not even discovered yet. Yeah, that's so cool. They're like, holy shit, we didn't even know about this. How cool that a woman found it. She's a badass. Totally. Also, the discovery of radium served as the foundation of Curie's work in physics, which later she would get awarded a Nobel

prize in chemistry for. And in the years that followed, she spent the majority of her career focused on isolating pure metallic radium, which she achieved in 1910. That must have been a little bit scary for her. Oh yeah. She's a badass. She did all kinds of shit. The girls have like one of those little like who was books on Marie Curie.

And they also have like a just like a standalone book about Marie Curie actually. So Marie Curie correctly theorized that among its potential uses, this new element she found could have important and honestly revolutionary applications in medicine. Oh, like me. There's my segue. But the fact remained that it was really difficult and super costly to isolate and extract. It's not like this was easy to do.

It was also true that although not as well established or understood, radium was seriously hazardous and very difficult to handle. For instance, in 1901, this is crazy. In 1901, the curies gave a fellow scientist a tiny little amount of radium to present at a conference in Paris. And before leaving for France, this man talked, it was in a little vial, like a glass vial. So he tucked that vial into an interior pocket of his jacket. It's in a vial.

And then he exploded. It's sealed, didn't open up. But the next time he undressed, he noticed a red mark on his stomach that appeared to be worsening in the hours and days that followed. Oh no. And according to author Kate Moore, she said, quote, it didn't get bigger, but it seemed somehow to get deeper as though his body was still exposed to the source of the wound and the flame was burning him still.

Oh my God. So what that scientist didn't know at the time was that he was experiencing a radiation burn from the tiny amount of radium in the vial that he and the Curies believe was totally safely stored in there. Wow. In fact, one of the other challenges of radium was that it has a relatively short shelf life and begins to break down really quickly, which is no bueno.

Cause it releases alpha, beta and gamma radiation in the process, which is very damaging to living systems and tissue and unchecked amounts. So while the glass vial itself might've been safely tucked away in his jacket, the element inside that vial itself might've been safely tucked away in his jacket, the element inside that vial was blasting out radiation waves directly into his skin. Oh my God.

And probably like anybody that was even near him. Yeah, other people could have been exposed. In this and other cases of minor exposure, and that's minor exposure, the injury appears like a worsening burn, like it keeps getting worse, but the body will heal itself on its own eventually when it's separated from the source.

But in more severe cases, or in cases of repeated exposure to this radiation, you can be disfigured or you can die. Wow. Because as we'll see in this case of the radium girls, if it gets inside of you, it just keeps pumping out radiation. It's like it keeps getting lit and lit and lit. Like it doesn't heal.

It won't allow your body to heal itself. So like minor wounds won't heal themselves. You could get, if you ingest this radium and you scratched your arm, it wouldn't heal. You'd have an open wound. Forever. And that would be it. What the fuck? So despite the dangerous and costly risks associated with handling and extracting radium,

it did seem like a huge thing of value for a lot of different avenues. Like if they could get it under control, particularly in manufacturing. In its process of decay, the particles inside of it charge one of its phosphorus components, zinc sulfide. And this causes what a lot of people know about radium, a green glow, phosphorescence kind of glow. Because the glow is a natural part of the process of decay of radium, it didn't need an external source of power

to make that happen, which is like a really ideal source of light for certain circumstances and environments. That being said, this luminescent glow is pretty minimal and it continued to break down over time. So it was limited with how it could be used. But throughout the first decade of the 20th century, several extraction plants were established across the US

to like harness the power of radium. Wow. Cause they were just like, what is this? Like, what can we do with this? It fucking glows. Like, what do we do with this? Cool. Bra, it glows.

Like we gotta do this. Bra, check this out. This is wicked cool. Now among those enthusiastic about the potential of radium was Dr. Sabin, I think it's Sabin, Arnold Von Sashoky, who was a chemical scientist who in 1915 developed luminescent paint. The paint seemed to be an ideal use for radium since it really didn't require much radium to produce and it could be used to paint clock and watch faces, instrument panels and other objects that really required minimal light to be seen in the faces, instrument panels, and other objects that really required

minimal light to be seen in the dark, but it could make certain things glow. So you could like, especially the clock faces, like if you've seen them from like the fifties and stuff, like a clock with like that green glow. That's that. Oh, okay. So that same year, Sushaki partnered with Dr. George Willis to establish the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation, which it was aimed at radium extraction and the production of luminescent paint.

The next year, the company was renamed the United States Radium Corporation, and the mission was, the scope of the mission was narrowed to the production and application of the luminescent paint. And factories were then opened in Newark and Orange, New Jersey. So all of a sudden, radium has become a thing. Now in the winter of 1917, a young girl named Catherine Schaub was like many of the girls who would come to work at US Radium. She was intelligent, she was very enthusiastic, and she was driven to achieve great things in her life.

Nice. At just 14 years old. Oh wow. She decided to act on a tip about jobs in the paint application department of US Radium. So she quit her job at the department store she was working at, walked into the plant manager's office and convinced that man to hire her.

Hell yeah, girl. Which like, what a badass. At 14 years old, absolutely. Yeah, throughout much of the 20th century, factories and manufacturing jobs were honestly Hell yeah, girl. Which like, what about us? At 14 years old, absolutely. Yeah. Throughout much of the 20th century, factories and manufacturing jobs were honestly among the most reliable sources of employment for working class Americans of all ages, really, particularly those with poor education or limited specialty skills. Sure.

Still, the work tended to be like tedious, kind of menial, dangerous. So the jobs were not very coveted. They were just things like everybody can do this. The painting jobs at US Radium on the other hand, seem to offer something a little more exciting than the typical factory assembly line job. So what Catherine had said was the work was interesting and of a far higher type than the usual factory job. Because

unlike factory floors, which were like dirty, loud, dangerous, just like not where you want to be, the application rooms at US Radium were referred to as a studio. Ooh, that's cool. Yeah, like they really knew how to market these jobs. And this was where talented young women with a steady hand in creativity, they worked with an exciting new product called luminescent paint. And at a time when it was being touted as quote, a wonder element radium and selling for $120,000 per gram, which is roughly $3 million in 2024. Blink, blink, blink, blink. The opportunity to work with Radium was very

thrilling. Absolutely. Very exciting. Very like, oh my goodness, like glamorous even. Yeah. Especially those who would never have access to it otherwise. And honestly, they got like, I think they got something like three times the amount they would get in a normal factory. Very well paid. And it was just like, note, and I think they hired a certain, they wanted a certain look for these factory wares. So they really went for like the whole vibe of this whole thing. This is so interesting.

Very interesting. The job was simple enough at its core. The pre-printed paper clock watch and instrument dials came in and they came in in like a large stack and each girl would work as quickly as they could to apply the luminescent paint to the letters and numbers on the dial, giving them that glow that we know. But for girls like Catherine Schaub,

the job was so much more than just, you know, tracing lines on a paper as fast as she could. In addition to applying the paint, each dial painter was responsible for mixing her own paint, which meant adding a small amount of the radium powder to water and gum adhesive to create the glowing paint. That was marketed as Undark.

Okay. Which I'm like, who came up with that name? Undark. Because they're like, it glows, so it's not dark. Which means you're making it undark. Like, okay. As they're like, it glows, so it's not dark. Which means you're making it undark. Like, okay. As they worked, though, the radium powder got everywhere. It covered the studio and it covered the painters in a fine coating of what they thought was this fancy fucking powder.

Oh, God. It's rare, it's this wonder element, and I'm covered in it, you know? And it's just like, and it's not dirty, it makes you glow. Yeah. Like it's got a luminescence to it. You almost look like you're sparkling. It's like what we would use like highlighter for now. Exactly, it's got that like vibe to it.

So I think it had this whole mystique that they were definitely feeding into. Now the work of a dial painter wasn't just a matter of chemistry and honestly speed because they wanted them to do it as fast as they could. It also required a little bit of skill and a lot of creativity because the products created by US Radium from wristwatches, instrument panels, clocks for the wall, they were really small, these little elements that they had to paint. And often they had these like tiny little details,

but these tiny details were really critical to their operation and if they were gonna be used or not. Like for example, the smallest pocket watches that they produce measured just three and a half centimeters across the face. Wow. And that like, so that's tiny, tiny little like millimeter things they had to paint.

Yeah. They can just like swipe it over it. They had to like trace the thing. So to ensure accuracy, dial painters worked with really tiny brushes. They were like camel hair brushes and they had to be capable of doing the finest details. So one painter said, I had never seen a brush as fine as that. I would say it possibly had about 30 hairs in it. It was exceptionally fine.

Wow. Because the consequences of an error could be very costly to the company. You know, accuracy and consistency in these little tiny details was very, very, very important. The brushes were delicate and slim for sure as we hear, but the bristles would like spread out after a while, like any brush, you know, they just get worn. Especially when you're working quickly, I'm sure. Exactly, cause you're really doing this as fast as you can.

That was gonna make mistakes happen. So what Schaub said was we put the brushes in our mouths because that was a technique they had made up called lip pointing. And it was passed down from the earliest dial painters who were themselves hired away from their previous jobs as painters of China dolls. So they were, they could do those fine details. Lip pointing was when the painter would wet the bristles of the brush with their lips

or their tongue. Oh God. Pressing those bristles together to make that fine tip, like we would with like a regular brush. Yes. Like you just to get it really thin. Not covered in radium. No. The girls totally unbeknownst to them,

while lip pointing was the standard practice in the US, it was not that way in Europe. In fact, European manufacturers had completely abandoned brushes altogether because they ended up using like implements that would hold that fine point so they wouldn't have to do that. Okay. Like glass rods, sharpened sticks, even like metal needles. Always more advanced. Guys, we all have a lot of day-to-day responsibilities.

Work, finances, some of you people have kids. How the heck do you do that? I try to manage my stressful schedule. I try self-care, exercise, a little more me time, you know, but sometimes that just doesn't cut it. So start your morning with Ritual Stress Relief. This product uses first of its kind technology to support the body's natural cortisol response so you can take on the daily juggle. Personally, I love Ritual Stress

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a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once a facade falls away. We've covered stories like a Shark Tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment, but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit filed by Larry King, and no real product to push. He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs. To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven

to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scanfluencers early and ad free right now on Wondry Plus. ["Wondry Plus Theme"] So, and it didn't ever cross the girls' mind that putting the brush covered in radioactive material in their mouths could be dangerous

because while the dial workers were hard at work in the factory, wealthy and elite people all over the nation were saying how radium is the greatest discovery in the ages. Like they used it in glassware and lingerie and toothpaste, miracle cures were being made with it. Like it was being touted as like the fucking cure-all. Like this is going to be the thing that changes everything. So why the fuck wouldn't you think?

It's in toothpaste. Why can't it be in my mouth? Even though it had literally like in a contained small vial like burned that man. Yeah. That they just didn't release that information or? A lot of this is shh. Why?

Yeah. One product actually marketed to men at this time was a tonic that they said restored vitality to the elderly, making old men young. I don't know about that, baby. So if you can drink it as a tonic. Oh my God. Of course you can quickly put a fucking brush

that's been dipped in it on your lips for a second. Why wouldn't you? No. And the thing is, they were being told by the people who own these corporations and factories, it is completely safe. Stick it in your mouth, it's fine. Put it on your, like whatever you, like this radium isn't gonna hurt you.

Oh God. They were told that. It's beautiful, look at it. Yeah, look, it glows, you're sparkly. So they were like, okay, why wouldn't they believe that? Yeah, look, it glows. You're sparkly. So they were like, okay, why wouldn't they believe that? Yeah, no, totally. So from the moment the Curies isolated and extracted radium from uranium, it was apparent

the element was dangerous and destructive. Like you just mentioned, it burned a guy's stomach just being in a glass vial in his pocket. The problem, it seems, was a matter of communication, more than the actual knowledge that everyone had. So Georgetown radiation expert Timothy Jorgensen said, people knew that radioactivity released energy, and they didn't see how adding some energy to their bodies could possibly be harmful. Okay.

They just weren't taught. Yeah, science wasn't that advanced yet. And they just weren't told that like this isn't the kind of energy you want to be adding to your body. Right, like there's good energy and bad energy. Yeah. In fact, despite the price of products containing radium, enthusiasm for the product seemed to be never ending.

I mean, it had like a boundless potential to be everything. For example, advertisements for Rattathor, a health tonic, sold the elixir as a cure for the living dead and perpetual sunshine. And it promised to cure everything from arthritis to gout. Wow. Yeah. So it was like the thing. And the public's understanding or probably better labeled, and Dave said this, which

is very true, public misunderstanding. It was a catastrophic misunderstanding by the public because of the people on top. The people on top were causing this misunderstanding because they just wanted to get shit. Yeah, exactly. The public's misunderstanding of radium seems probably, like we're looking at this today in 2024, part of the 20th century, when most people's education stopped after grammar school,

scientific knowledge was pretty limited, like you said. And as is often the case today, people just keyed in on buzzwords and associated scientific discovery with human progress. And, you know, it's a little bit of a different story to just talk about the scientific discovery and the scientific discovery and the scientific discovery and the scientific discovery Pretty limited, like you said. And as is often the case today, people just keyed in on buzzwords and associated scientific discovery with human progress.

And of course, it's gonna be unquestionably positive, right? Like we're all progressing, we're evolving. This is great technology. And as a result, the public honestly rarely questioned, and we've seen this in a few cases, they rarely questioned whether products containing radium was safe. And they've done that throughout history. I mean, look at arsenic eaters.

There's all kinds of times when they're just being led to believe that this is fine by all these companies pushing these products on people. And it's easy to go along with the flow and think that you're being told the truth and not questioning. That's why it's important to go along with the flow and think that you're being told the truth when and not questioning. Mm-hmm. That's why it's important to question. Especially because something has a seemingly desirable outcome. Exactly.

That's exactly it. Now, quite the opposite, in fact. They developed a rabid enthusiasm for the fact of consuming radium-based products whenever possible. So it really went the other way. And in the radium dial factories, where the dial painters were in literal constant contact with the powder and paint,

enthusiasm for radium was at an all-time high. In fact, some of the girls actually liked consuming the small amounts of paint because they liked the way it tasted. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, apparently it tasted good. It's like pica. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Now, the problem interesting. Yeah, apparently it tasted good. It's like pica. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now the problem of course was that radium was literally anything that's safe. It was everything unsafe. Quite the opposite. And although it did have promising applications in medicine, because we are able to harness very unsafe chemicals.

Yeah. When people know how to do that and make them safe, but by itself, no, it wasn't as a tonic or other health fad. Like they wasn't being safe in those usages. Medicine, sure, you're gonna figure out a way to make that safe. Tonics, health fads, fucking all that shit, like toothpastes and shit, no,

we're not getting it right there. And by the time World War I was in full swing, the radium plants and their dial painters were working overtime to meet growing demand for these clocks, watches, all this stuff. Yet at the same time that these young women were inhaling and consuming small amounts of radium, Marie Curie and her husband were beginning to understand

the destructive power of the element that they discovered. Oh man. And it was true that radium had the ability, which is incredible. It has the ability to destroy tumors and other cancerous growth. That's where we get radiation. Of course, we look at it today and we say, where would we be? But the more they worked with it, the more they began to recognize that its power to do that was indiscriminate. It was just as likely to destroy healthy cells as it was to destroy unhealthy.

So it's like, this is great. We just need to harness it the correct way and we have not. And it's like, now the whole world is just like eating this shit up. So it wasn't just the curies who knew it either. The founder of US Radium, Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sushaki had also become very, very familiar with the destructive power of radium. How familiar? Yeah.

According to author Kate Moore, who we will cite the sources in the notes, of course, early in the company's history, radium had actually gotten into Von Shachy's left index finger and she said, quote, when he realized he hacked the tip of it off, saying it now looked as though an animal had groped, had gnawed it. This was because according to Timothy Jorgensen, radium behaves very much like calcium because the body is accustomed to using calcium to build bone. It will recognize radium as a kind of calcium. And so it will absorb the radioactive material into your bone and then it will just begin

to decay your bone. What the fuck? Because it mistakes it for calcium. So it just takes its regenerating. And thinks it needs to like push it out to the rest of your body to reabsorb calcium. Oh wow. And that's why it just destroys. Because it just gets pumped out.

That's horrifying but it's also fascinating. So fascinating, exactly. That your body can't tell the difference. Isn't it wild? It kind of mimics it. Yeah, like the body is so smart, obviously, and there are miraculous things that the body does. But then to have something so dangerous enter your system and to just be like, oh, calcium.

Like body, no, let body know. But this is all to say, within at least a few years of founding his company, US Radium, Von Sushaki knew Radium-based paint was highly toxic and extraordinarily dangerous. You just got so Boston. Extraordinarily. I don't know how to say that. Extraordinarily. Extraordinarily.

That was great. Okay, pop up. Extraordinarily dangerous, but he kept that little bit of knowledge from his employees. Oh, good. Which is fucked up, to say the very, very least. In fact, as soon as most painters were introduced to the lip pointing technique, most inquired as to whether the paint was in any way harmful. That was everybody's first question. They're like, cool that I do this or not.

Because that's the thing. It's not that these girls walked in there and were just like, chemicals? Sure, I'll just eat it. They asked the people in charge, the people who should be telling them whether these things are dangerous. Right. And these people, all their telling them whether these things are dangerous. And these people, all their managers would say, no, it's completely safe. And knowing it wasn't.

Knowing how bad it was. Now, within a few years, many dial painters in the New Jersey factories had actually become like local celebrities. Like this was a glamorous thing. Wow, that's so crazy. Isn't that wild? Yes. Because unlike traditional factory workers, like I was saying before, they had kind of

a vibe they were going for. They had a look. They were young, attractive, and those that earned a decent wage were often happy to spend at least some of that money to look good. They were getting the latest fashion. So they were always looked at as these glamazons that just like work in this studio painting with luminescent paint and they always come out, cover it, you know, like it was like this whole vibe.

And above all else, it was the radium itself that made these girls instantly recognizable as being radium girls who worked in the factories. Because during their hour spent in the studio, like we said before, it was impossible to not get radium dust all over you in your hair, on your clothes. So when they would leave work for the day, they had an unmistakable neon glow. So they would walk out of there as the sun's going down and they're glowing. Literally.

Yeah. Oh my God. A painter, Edna Bowles said, when I would go home at night, my clothing would shine in the dark. You could see where I was, my hair, my face, the girls shown like the watches did in the dark room. Wow.

So like you just watch this like line of beautiful young girls. Glowing. Come out glowing. Physically, legitimately, in every sense of the word, glowing. That must've been like, of course you want to just idolize this situation. It just must seem so otherworldly and wild. It does.

Yes, it absolutely does. Like ethereal. Yeah. Like some of the young women and girls would wear clothing to work that they wanted to wear to the dance later, like on Fridays. And they would do that. So they would get the radium glow on that dress

that they wanted to wear. And then later at the dance, they would be fucking glowing on the dance floor. So everybody's like, who's that girl? So everybody's like, there's that radium girl. And it's like, this was awesome. Oh my goodness. But not everyone was as enthusiastic about the job

or the effects of working with the paint. According to Moore, some found the paint made them sick. One woman even got sores on her mouth after just a month of working there. And within a few years, even those who loved their jobs like Catherine Chob, they started to notice that there were certain reactions that they were having trouble explaining.

After just a year in the studio, Catherine started getting really bad acne and went to go see a doctor. And at first the doctor was like, oh, you know, puberty, you're 15. So the doctor was like, you know, you're 15 years old. It's probably puberty. But then he ran some simple blood tests just to make sure everything was on the up-and-up And he noticed some pretty unusual changes that he'd seen in other factory workers And he said they were ones that had been exposed to high levels of phosphorus

Okay, and as far as Katherine knew she didn't work with or even near any phosphorus So the anomalies in the blood were just kind of like this is purple X. Yeah, that's weird suspicious neither Katherine nor any of the other girls knew it in the blood were just kind of like, this is purplexing. Yeah, that's weird. That's suspicious. Neither Catherine nor any of the other girls knew it, but they were working in very close proximity to phosphorus and it was beginning to affect them physically. This was part of the whole thing. The symptoms, but they weren't told that the symptoms of radiation poisoning were alarming to Catherine and her coworkers, but their minds were then

set at ease because Dr. Von Syshawki's partner, Dr. George Willis, told them there was nothing to worry about. Don't worry about it. It has nothing to do with your job. Shut up. Stop going to the doctor. Don't worry about it. Look over here. Shut up. As Moore pointed out, when one of the greatest radium authorities tells you that you have no need to worry, quite simply, you don't. You don't worry, yeah. Yeah. In fact, Willis's reassurances were so comforting

that the girls even began to laugh off the increasing frequency of weird occurrences. Like they were just kind of like, whoa, this is so weird. Like, can't have anything to do with this. Oh God. Including painter Grace Fryer, who recalled, quote, nasal discharges on my handkerchief used to be luminous in the dark.

What? Yeah. So her boogers were shining? Her boogers were shining. Oh my God. Sometimes for fun or to make each other laugh, the girls would paint their faces, their nails, and even their teeth with the radium paint.

No. Mm-hmm. Ohium paint. No. Oh my God. Yeah. Now, despite their employers insistence that everything was on the up and up, everything is entirely completely, don't worry about it. Couldn't be safer.

Could not be safer. The fact remains that many people, painters and ordinary citizens, were continuing to get sick. Some, like the worker who complained of the mouth sores after a mouth. Showed signs of radiation burns while others had more complicated problems. Because radiation burns at least, you know, like that scientist when you're taken away from the radiation, usually your body can heal itself.

But others had more complicated problems like bone deterioration. Some girls took their concerns straight to their regular doctors, but because radiation poisoning and radiation burns were so uncommon, their symptoms and injuries were like mostly misdiagnosed as other things. Others who went to their managers or company doctors

were just ignored or worse, they would just the company doctors or they would just, the company doctors or managers would just misdiagnose them with sexually transmitted diseases. Are you kidding me? To smear the reputations of the women. Knowing full well what was actually happening. And they would do this to smear the reputations of them to discourage them from disclosing their symptoms to anyone else.

Because if you're being told by your company doctor, you have a sexually transmitted disease in the 1920s. Oh my God. And you're, he's going to be like, go right ahead, go talk to your doctor about it. Like you're not going to tell anyone else. You're going to be, you're being shamed at that point. That's so fucking evil. Yep.

And given all the ways that the dial painters were exposed to radium, it was dentists who usually heard about the first symptoms because remember a lot of that is going in the mouth area. Beginning in the late 1910s, girls were showing up at their dentist's office with complaints of tooth pain, loose teeth, ulcers were showing up. And in more extreme cases where the teeth had to be pulled, dental surgeons started noticing that the sockets wouldn't heal. They would just stay an open wound and not heal. And then they would become infected. Right, of course.

It's your fucking mouth. And they were like, what the fuck is this? And these symptoms caused by exposure to radium and its tendency to decay bone matter were eventually lumped together into what was informally referred to as radium jaw. You can Google radium jaw at your own risk. Is it horrible? It's just very upsetting. I'm about to.

So when the war ended in late 1918, demand for radium dials decreased, like dramatic decrease, as did the need for so many dial painters. We didn't need as many. Yeah. Mikey and Ash just looked it up at the same time. You had a... Yeah, that's the one. That's the one.

That's the one. Oh, that's so sad. It's just a total jog on. You both did the same gasp at the same time. We're both air signs. Both of you went, and I knew you both looked. Yeah. Again, at your own risk, it's graphic and upsetting.

It's so upsetting that people knew how dangerous this was and they were like, yeah, go for it. Drink the tonic. Yeah, just stick that brush in your mouth. But yeah, so while there was still a demand for luminescent watches as the war ended in 1918, that demand was not enough to keep the hundreds of dial painters employed. Like there was a lot of dial painters.

So the companies, including US Radium, cut back the workforce. Still used them though. And many of the painters who were then in their late teens and early twenties chose to quit their jobs and get married and start families. But this started a second wave of really scary symptoms now that these girls are saying,

well, I want to start a family. Even before attempting to get pregnant and have children, many of the painters had noticed that they had very strange changes to their menstrual cycles. And then when they began trying to get pregnant, they struggled to conceive and eventually learned that they were sterile. Oh my God, how heartbreaking. And finally, many of the women who were able to conceive somehow were soon absolutely

heartbroken by stillbirths, by miscarriages, and by quote deformities in body structure of their babies. That's so fucked. The far reaching consequences of this are astronomical. Truly. The first death came in 1922, but only after a long, and when I tell you excruciating, I mean excruciatingly painful illness by this person. Oh no. A year earlier, 1921 in September, former dial painter girl, Molly Maja had visited

her dentist and she had to have a tooth removed because she had pain. Weeks later, however, she was still experiencing pain and that socket had not healed weeks later. So she went back to the dentist who diagnosed her with piorea, which is an inflammatory disease of the gums and started treating her for that. Weeks later, however, it got worse and so had her intense lower jaw pain.

I'm Dan Tuberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad and like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back.

Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. No, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here.

Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical. Follow Hysterical on the Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical. Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence that she left him there.

In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask. Was it a crime of passion?

If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia. Or a corrupt police cover-up. If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion. And after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery+. Join Wondery+, in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts, or Spotify. To everyone around her, it was very clear she was in terrible pain, as her teeth were literally, slowly and visibly rotting in her jaw. Oh, God.

For no reason at all, like that everybody could see, but the doctor could not figure out why this was happening. That must've been so terrifying for her to have like suddenly start experiencing that and then have your doctor have no fucking idea why. No way to stop it. You're in intense pain all the time. And you're just this young girl. As far as her dentist, Dr. Joseph Neff could tell, he said it was almost like something

was attacking her from the inside, but he couldn't tell what. Whatever was affecting Molly's teeth soon spread to her jaw and caused necrosis. Molly's teeth and jaw were literally rotting. And in fact, at one point, and this is very graphic, just so you know, at one point, the dentist literally used his fingers to literally pull pieces of her jaw out because it just crumbled like dust in his hands. I... Yeah. Oh. Like open wounds in her mouth.

Oh my God. And he just essentially scooped her jaw out with his hands, unintentionally, but it just crumbled to dust in her hands. Feel your jaw. Yeah. Feel how, like, thick and dense your jaw is. I mean, your mandible is made to crush and to withstand some pressure. Like, think about that. You're supposed to be able to like really

gnaw down on things and use it as like a... And he just scooped it. It just turned to dust. Because that's what it does. It destroys the cells. And then you're just disfigured. Oh, yeah. But beyond the unbearable physical pain she experienced, the rapid decay of her mouth was accompanied also, and this is just so upsetting, by a very noticeable odor of literal decay. Yeah, of course. Like rotting flesh and bone.

Think about like, you have like a cavity and you're like, oh fuck, I gotta brush my teeth extra. Yes. But hers is literally rotting. Like a whole side of her face. Like it's like a death, essentially. And then her gums do everything. So she had this intense embarrassment that made her not want to be even around people. And out of ideas, her dentist visited the radium plant and asked for the ingredients

in the compound just hoping to clue in on her problem. But the managers at the plant were uncooperative and refused to provide any information about the paint to him. That's how you know. Pieces of absolute shit. And the situation continued to confound her doctor, her dentist, Dr. Neff, and those with whom he was consulting. He was trying to get anybody to like, he stopped at nothing to try to get some answers here.

Also just to think that they were like, yeah, no, we're not going to tell you if this is happening to one girl, this is obviously going to happen to other people too. Like you're going to run into some shit. So you might as well shut down production. And just be on it, like try to save some people here. Yeah, like call an L and L. Yeah. So Dr. Neff said,

whenever a portion of the affected bone was removed, instead of arresting the course of necrosis, it speeded it up. By the fall of 1922, Molly's condition had worsened and her entire jaw, having largely disintegrated at this point, was removed. And they had to remove pieces of her inner ear as well. And then it's like, can you even, she probably couldn't even speak anymore. Oh, and it gets worse. Again, I'm going to tell you this gets very, very graphic, even more graphic. It was at that time that doctors discovered whatever had affected Molly's teeth and jaw had now spread and was eating away at her throat. Oh my God. So they

were unable to stop this, which is horrifying because they just got once radiation, once it's in there, what are you going to do? once radiation, once it's in there, you can't do anything. Like it's, it's happening. So they weren't able to stop whatever was eating away at Molly, at Molly's entire body at this point. And in September, the disease slowly ate its way through her jugular vein. Oh my God. On September 12th, a little past 5pm, Molly's jugular vein erupted because it had been eaten away, hemorrhaging blood so fast that her sister, who was by her side while she was in bed, could do nothing but watch her bleed to death and choke on her own blood. It was literally a river of blood pouring from her mouth and she just choked to death on her own blood. It was literally a river of blood pouring from her mouth

and she just choked to death on her own blood. That's literally like something she drowned in her own blood. Oh my God. Yeah. Like that is one of the most horrific things I've ever heard. 100%. Just this young girl, her body just gets eaten by... They're all in their early 20s, sometimes late teens. Like, they're young. Oh, my God. Yeah. And her poor family to watch that happen.

And her doctor, like, obviously you're a doctor, you feel a responsibility to help somebody. And this man did everything he could. Yeah. And he just couldn't do anything. They just threw up a roadblocks to him and let Molly die. And at that point it's like, even if they had found out what was causing it, I don't, like, how can you stop that? You can't.

You can't. Not that I know of, right? You can't. Because that's the problem. Like, I had mentioned this before and we were shocked by it, how like your body mistakes radium for calcium. So it just keeps going. Cause they're very, I guess they're chemically very similar.

They can be mistaken by the, you know, your body. But so when it tries to infuse that radium into the bones, like it does with calcium, alpha particles are released by the radium and that infuses into your bones. And that's what, those are the kinds of things that cause all these awful things like cancer. Like many of these girls, many of these young women got like different kinds of cancers later in life and they all cause bones to

disintegrate and rot and just it spreads like wildfire and then you can't stop it. Really. It's so scary how delicate the human body is. And after Molly's funeral, the family spoke to Dr. Neff to try to find out what happened, which is when they were informed that although he had kept the diagnosis from her at the time, he hadn't told Molly, he said he was diagnosing her with the only thing he knew to do. And the only thing that he had been told was the cause of this, which was syphilis. I was thinking you were going to say that, but she did not. That's what they would do.

They would just label it something like that. The company, as you can imagine, was the US radium was very excited to be able to use that cop out as C, it wasn't radium poisoning. It was syphilis and it's not our fault. Yeah, wrong. When they know that wasn't the real cause. Now to do that to her in death, like are you kidding me? And the worst thing is it's like they would have like a coroner's jury at this time where

like it was just like layman on a jury that would like all agree on the cause of, you know what I mean? Like it wasn't well done. So it's like doctors or anything like that. Exactly. Which that does change luckily. But that's good. Now as Molly was dying in New Jersey, hundreds of girls in Ottawa, Illinois started lining

up for what were promised to be glamorous jobs as painters at the Radium Dial Company. Like US Radium, the Radium Dial Company produced luminescent clock and watch faces using the same lip pointing technique as the girls in New Jersey. And it's not like we have social media where everyone's going to blast out what the fuck's happening in New Jersey over here. So now over in Illinois, they have no fucking clue. Oh my God. Yeah. And despite the employment ads stated goal of hiring several girls 18 years or over, many of the painters at Radium Dial were under 18, some as young as 11 years old.

Oh my god. And do you think what that's going to do to an 11 year old? You have no chance. None. None. Like the girls at US Radium, the new painters at Radium Dial quickly became, you know, local celebrities in Ottawa making the job and making radium seem very glamorous. According to one local paper, the girls were the envy of the others in the little Illinois town when they stepped out with their boyfriends at night, their dresses and hats, and sometimes

even their hands and faces, aglow with the phosphorescence of the luminous paint. That sounds awesome. Anybody would be like, holy shit, I want a sparkle for my job. However, unlike US radium, product and material waste didn't seem to be a priority at radium dial. US radium is shit or was shit, but radium dial, worse, didn't give a shit about how dangerous the substance was. The girls frequently covered themselves in radium powder, entertained each other with the paint during their lunch hours and even took vials home with them here. Yeah.

Darlene Holm, whose aunt worked at radium Dial, told a reporter, I can remember my family talking about my aunt bringing home the little vials of radium paint. They would go into their bedroom with the lights off and paint their fingernails, their eyelids, their lips, and they'd laugh at each other because they glowed in the dark. Right. At home. Like it's just entertaining. Yeah.

And then you think of they're affecting everybody at home too without even knowing it. Yeah, exactly. Now Holm's aunt, Peg Looney, was one of the first girls hired as a painter at Radium Dial Company in 2020, 2022, 1922 when they opened. And like so many of the others, 17 year old Peg loved the job, found it so exciting and glamorous. Also like the others, Peg's boss at Radium Dial told her and all the other painters that the paint was completely safe, not harmful at all.

Quite the opposite, in fact. She said, quote, they told the girls it would make them beautiful. Yeah. So they actually were encouraging it. But within a few years, it became clear that they were not being given the correct information. Within a few years of taking the job, Peg Looney started having health problems that one would not typically associate with a young woman

barely out of her teens. Okay. Like many of the other painters, it all started when Peg go into the dentist and having a tooth taken out. Oh no. The procedure was intended to relieve some of the jaw pain that she had been experiencing.

But in the days and weeks after that, the pain got worse. The extraction site still didn't heal. Things only got worse from there. And soon after her jaw pain became so bad and pieces of teeth and jawbone started falling out of her mouth regularly. Oh my God. Yes. Like so many others, Peg's teeth and jaw problems soon spread to falling out of her mouth regularly. Oh my god. Yes. Like so many others, Peg's teeth and jaw problems soon spread to other areas of her body. She became anemic. She couldn't walk due to crippling pain. Oh my god.

Holm said her fiance used to pull her around the neighborhood in a wagon when she was too ill to walk. Oh. And this is her in her early 20s. Yeah. One day in 1928, Peg collapsed at work and the managers in Radium Dial made sure she was rushed to the company hospital. In fact, Holmes said, my grandparents and her siblings had no say about her going to the

company hospital and we were not allowed to visit. What the fuck? Just the fact that there was company hospitals is even terrifying. Yeah. They were told she had diphtheria and was quarantined. What? Peg Looney died in the Radium Dial Hospital at just 24 years old. 24. And her parents didn't even get to see her. They didn't get to see her. And according to her niece, the Radium Dial Company insisted that Peg be buried right away and

started making preparations. Yeah, I bet. But by then the family was very suspicious that the company might be trying to hide something. So one of them badasses that they are, they intervened and insisted the family be allowed to give Peg a Catholic burial. And the company relented and even agreed to allow to have an autopsy performed in the presence of Looney's doctor. But when the doctor arrived at the scheduled time, they said, oh, the autopsy has already been completed. Oh, crazy.

They didn't find anything. It was just a theory. Oh yeah, totally. But yeah, for sure. This is so fucking shady as fuck. Big companies usually are. Yep. Peg was just the first of many radium dial painters to become ill with mysterious illnesses. And the company just kept attempting to minimize them

or cover them up. In 1925, another painter, Katherine Donahue, also started feeling sick and experiencing incredible pain in her hip. That actually caused a limp. And in 1931, Radium Dial fired Donahue because quote, my limping was causing much talk. And she told a report of that in 1938. Her story was like so many others.

Her pain soon spread, parts of her jaw started falling out of her fucking head and she eventually became bedridden and unable to walk. And the local doctor was unable to diagnose her illness. They just had no idea what was going on, but insisted that she did have some kind of radium poisoning but nobody could prove it. That's good though that at least they were like, nope, you definitely do. Exactly. There were several more women with teeth, bone, jaw issues. One woman's vertebrae disintegrated from radium incorporation into her bones. Just turned to fucking dust in her back and she collapsed.

Her vertebrae? Her vertebrae turned to dust in her body. Poof. Oh my. turned to dust in her body. Poof. Oh my. That's your whole ass spine being compromised by poof turning to dust. And you'll never ever be the same after that. Now back in New Jersey, the deaths of Molly Maja

and growing number of illnesses among the dial painters set off a wave of speculation that the cause might be related to the radium paint finally. Yeah. A former painter, Kinta McDonald said, many of the girls I knew and had worked with in the plant began to die off alarmingly fast. And in response, US Radium hired

a Harvard trained physiologist consultant in 1924 to evaluate the situation. Who know what's happening. Oh yeah, don't worry, they had a plan. When his report to management contained incredibly profoundly negative results and dire, dire warnings, the company just issued a fake positive report

under the consultant's name. Are you fucking kidding me? Under that consultant's name. The lengths these kidding me? Under that consultant's name. The lengths these motherfuckers were willing to go to to make a quick buck. True pieces of garbage. And they submitted that to the New Jersey Department of Labor. Under that consultant's name, they just lied and said that he said it was positive. That's not at all what I said.

Despite US Radium's vast efforts to cover up the dangers posed by radium in their plants, the consequences were becoming undeniable. They're not going to be able to cover this up forever. Everyone is literally dying after they work at your factory or while working at your factory. They're literally disintegrating. Former workers are disintegrating in front of everybody. Oh, my God. When you actually say that and think about, like, you're not being hyperbolic, people

are disintegrating. They're rotting, decaying. Oh, my God. In 1925, a statistician with the Prudential Insurance Company started documenting the numerous illnesses reported by employees with the company, including the many jaw and teeth infections reported in two dead and twelve living painters. A short time later, the county medical examiner, Dr. Harrison Martland, documented his, quote, detection of gamma rays from living dial painters and the exhalation of radon from their lungs.

He took it upon himself, actually, Dr. Martland, he took it upon himself to help prove that these young women were being poisoned by radium in the paint that they were working with and that it was the cause of their suffering and eventual deaths. Wow. Dr. Martland was able to show that radium outside of the body is enough to burn, obviously, like we've seen and cause harm, but when ingested into the body, it is so much worse because it will continue to create and give off radiation essentially forever. It just keeps destroying the living cells around it.

It doesn't allow anything to heal. And he said this substance they were told was harmless was now basically punching holes into their bones as they walked around. And let me tell you, the corporations tried to discredit him, but he was relentless, even getting the coroner's jury system abolished to create a more knowledgeable, incredible basis for these women to plead their case in court eventually. Before the year was over, there was another death. This time it was the sister of one of the US Radium dial painters whose sole contact with Radium was sharing a bed with her.

That's it. Her sister. Are you serious? Sharing a bed with her and she died. Nothing happened to the sister who was working there? She was also going through it. Oh, oh my God. But just sharing a bed with her, she never had direct contact with Radium.

Was enough to... Yeah, to kill her. Oh. Due to the growing number of problems with the staff and the decline in demand for the product, in 1926, US radium ceased production and closed the plants in New Jersey and moved their entire operation to New York. But by then, the damage had been done

and it was becoming unavoidable. The previous year, former dial painter Grace Fryer was one of those who the medical examiner had detected radiation in and connected that to her mysterious illnesses that were cropping up. And she wanted answers. She wasn't gonna stay quiet. Not just for herself, but she said,

but for her friends who had become ill and sometimes died. Dr. Harrison Martland had confirmed that their illnesses had something to do with their jobs, but whether or not there was any negligence involved was something he couldn't prove by himself. Grace, on the other hand, had begun to suspect that her bosses at US Radian had actually known a great deal more than they had let on and were going to great lengths to cover it up. In fact, when she was first informed that she was sick, Grace recalled a day early in her job at the plant

where Von Sushaki had explicitly told her not to put the brush in her mouth because it would make her sick. So for however long, totally fine, everything's great. Don't worry about it, safe as can be. And then nothing will happen to you. Stick it in there, everything's great. Don't worry about it, safe as can be. And then nothing will happen to you. Stick it in there, it's fine, ba ba ba. And then right as she gets sick,

he's like, you shouldn't put that in your mouth. It's like, huh, why has it been fine up until this point, sir? And she said, if he knew there was danger in ingesting the radium dust and paint, why had he allowed it to happen for so long? So a few months later, Grace asked Von Sushaki that very question, but aside from a shame idly muttering something about how he'd warned other members of the corporation of the risk,

he offered no explanation. Wow. So she literally was like, why did you let everybody do that? If you've known that? And he was like, I tried to tell them money, I think. But yeah, according to Kate Moore, Von Sushaki would later claim that he raised his concerns to the board of directors and management, but quote, was opposed by members of the corporation who had charge of the personnel.

Sure. So no matter what way you shake it out, assholes. Either way, you work at a shitty company. For years, Grace Fryer had been suffering from mysterious illnesses with no cure and would certainly, honestly, most certainly die at a very young age because of them. Yeah, absolutely. And now after receiving confirmation that the illness was definitely a direct result, not just of negligence, but of outright deceit and abuse on the part of her employer, she was fucking pissed.

So over the course of the following year, she started talking with her friends and former coworkers and was like, let's file a fucking lawsuit against this motherfucking good. Because again, it's not just negligence, it's deceit and abuse. Like they did this intentionally. So the problem was though that it was unclear whether New Jersey labor laws would cover their damage claims since they had begun so many years earlier. Wow. Also, while there was some evidence to suggest the company knew about the risks, they would

have to prove that in court, which wasn't going to be super easy. Yeah, that's tough. Regardless of the challenge that was ahead of them, Grace and the others pressed the fuck on. And after two years, they finally found a lawyer that was ahead of them, Grace and the others pressed the fuck on. And after two years, they finally found a lawyer that was willing to take on the case. Nice. In May 1927, Grace Fryer filed a suit against US Radium, which she was joined with four other former painters, Edna Husman, Catherine Schaub, Kinta McDonald, and Albina Larise.

In their petition, Fryer and the other women asked for $125,000 in damages. Which is like nothing considering what they were going through. Exactly. But lawyers on behalf of US Radium argued that the statute of limitations had long expired on their claim, which was true as the state's law was written. It's like, dudes, you know what you did. You're a huge corporation with I I'm sure, millions of fucking dollars. Give these girls some money so that they can literally pay their medical bills.

Yeah, literally. Now, undeterred, the now referred to in the press as, this is when they got the name Radium Girls. Okay. So the Radium Girls petitioned the New Jersey Supreme Court to expand the statute of limitation for workplace negligent claims, arguing, quote, the harmful effect of radioactive substances

on workers may set in from one to 18 years after exposure to that substance. Wow, it can take that long. So that's why that statute of limitations is bullshit. So by the time the court date arrived in January, 1928, two of the women had become bedridden. Grace was unable to walk and required a back brace in order to sit up.

She was one of the ones whose vertebrae had like basically disintegrated. And quote, none could raise their arms to even take the oath. None of them. That's how sick they were. None of them could even raise an arm like this. Oh my God.

Under the circumstances, the court date was pushed back to April, at which time a number of medical experts and scientists testified on behalf of Friar and the others, explaining the effects of radiation on the body and how it had caused the specific illnesses in the five women who'd brought the suit Despite all this and despite the absolute urgency in the fact that two of them are now bedridden and none of them can even Raise their hand to take the oath like their health is

Frail is not even the word Rapidly deteriorating lawyers for US Radium successfully petitioned to have the case postponed until September. You want to know why? Because they were hoping these girls would die. Is everybody ready? Nope. I want everyone to hold on for this answer. They wanted to postpone this case to September

because, quote, several US radium witnesses are vacationing in Europe. That checks. So these women are actively dying, actively dying, and they want to move it further out so that these fucking pieces of shit can finish vacationing in Europe. We don't want these pieces of

shit who profited off all of the work that these girls did and are now suffering from. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I'm so mad right now. Oh my God. What? By then the case of the Radium Girls had received a lot of national coverage. And the judge's decision to postpone this case was met with public outrage. Yeah. I mean, like, yeah. Oh yeah. No problem. I'll wait until you're done with your outrage. Yeah, I mean, like, yeah. Oh yeah, no problem. I'll wait until you're done with your yacht. No problem. Sounds good. Because people, the public had started to see these women,

the five women as symbolic of the ways in which the working class were being exploited by corporations. Yep. Not only that, but people are buying these products. Yeah, so they're like, I wanna see justice here. Given the interest in the story, Friar and the others use the opportunity buying these products, these clocks. And they're like, I want to see justice here. Given the interest in the story, Fryer and the others used the opportunity to plead their

case to the public and granted interviews in which they told their story. Good. Fryer told a reporter, I have had 19 operations, but my doctors tell me there is no hope. Oh my God. In each interview, Grace gave details about her illness and how the negligence and recklessness of US radium had affected her life and was going to end her life. She said, the worst part of the whole thing is that I don't dare do much with my hands for fear of being scratched.

The least scratch will not heal because of the radium. So she can't even do anything because she's so worried about getting a tiny scratch. Because then if that gets infected, she's done. By late May tiny scratch. Because then it won't ever heal. By late May, three more former painters had joined the suit. Good. Amazing. And we're now pushing to have the trial moved up, arguing that the plaintiffs might fucking die before the case was called in September.

So sorry that you're busy on your fucking European vacation, but my literal life depends on this. Just days later, Vice Chancellor John Bacchus ruled that the statute of limitations was not applicable in this case and the suit should be allowed to move forward quickly. He said, my own opinion is that the statute of limitations did not run from the time the girls took this poison into their systems, but from the time of the injury. And in my opinion, the statute of limitation does not apply until the period of injury ends." Great.

Which like, hell yeah. Bacchus' opinion didn't end with his opinions on the statute alone. He also addressed the trial delay. Rather than continue waiting on the case, which would be likely held to previous standards, Bacchus suggested, you know what, girlies? Why don't you drop this existing case, file a new one. File that new one that's going to be held to the new shit. Nice.

File another one, drop this, get out of there. Among other things, a new case would have been aided significantly by the information that had come to light during the review of the statute of limitations, including the fact that managers at the US Radium Corporation had, quote, in setting up the plea of the statute of limitations, essentially confessed that they had been guilty of the wrongs of which the defendants claim. Yeah. We're guilty.

It's just that time's run out. And now you can use this. Yeah. Because guess what, baby? That statute of limitations doesn't exist anymore, but your statements do. Yup. Still there. So let's go.

While the courts and lawyers for both sides fought in court, the victims continued their campaign to keep the story in the press. They wanted people to keep hearing about this. A few days after the limitations ruling was made, Catherine Schaub made a surprising offer to the doctors and scientists studying the effects of radium poisoning. Now Grace Fryer, I'll tell you the author don't worry, but Grace Fryer had previously offered, she offered her body for study after her death.

She had said, when I die, you can take it to study for radium poisoning. But as one doctor put it, that we examine her body after death would not do so much for medical science as a living specimen. They're like, that's great. Like wonderful.

Thank you. Absolutely. But like, it's not gonna do what we need it to do essentially. And given that Katherine Schaub offered herself as a living specimen. What? Telling reporters,

I am willing with my fullest confidence in the doctors to undergo experiments that may save the other girls. Wow. I just got chills. my fullest confidence in the doctors to undergo experiments that may save the other girls. Wow. Katherine, motherfucking shot. I just got chills. I have chills. I have goosebumps all the way up my arms right now.

My legs have goosebumps even. Like Katherine Chubb. Wow. What an incredible human. Yeah. Not even knowing what these experiments could do to her, but if they were going to save one of her friends or somebody who had gone through what she had. That's amazing.

Now, between Bacchus' ruling in the statute case and the ongoing and very much intensifying public support of the victims, officials from US Radium saw that the wind was not blowing in their favor here and the odds were definitely not in their favor. The wind was not blowing through the sails of their European sailboats. With just days to go before the start of the new trial, lawyers for US Radium reached out to Grace and the other women with a settlement offer. In exchange for dropping the lawsuit, they offered a $10,000 lump sum payment and $600 a year for the rest of their lives.

That I would say suck my dick. Now that like we just, you know, as Ash just said, so eloquently, the settlement was hardly what had been asked for in the lawsuit. But given that none of them were likely to live much longer, which is very upsetting, all five agreed it would be better to get some resolution than to die with no one being held accountable. And to spend the rest of their lives fighting this. Unfortunately, by settling out of court, US Radium had no obligation to take responsibility

for or even acknowledge their role in any of this. Wow. In response to the settlement, US radium's president, Clarence Lee, gave a statement to the press in which he said, we unfortunately gave work to a great many people who were physically unfit to procure employment in other lines of industry. Cripples and persons similarly incapacitated were engaged. What was then considered an act of kindness on our part has been turned against us. Are you fucking joshing me, bro? Get so fucked. Be so fucking for real.

Be so fucking for real. You got, I just hit my microphone with anger. You gotta tell me that Karma got one of these motherfuckers. Clarence, that statement sent me into fucking oblivion Like I don't we were nice enough to give you a job and you're annoyed because your jaws falling off You're physically unfit to do it. Are you and it's like joking I Know boy come is gonna get you now by the mid 1930s Oh boy, karma's gonna getcha. Now by the mid 1930s, all five of the Radium Girls

had died without hearing a single word of apology from the company who'd taken literally everything from them. Their lives. Not one fucking breath of an apology. Why I motherfucking oughta. Yeah. Are you joking? Not one breath of apology. Why I motherfucking, Ata. Yeah. Are you joking? Not one breath of apology.

That makes me so fucking angry. I need to know when they got shut down. I need to know. Well, the settlement in the US radium case turned out to be just the beginning. Oh wow. And other suits followed around the country. Good.

In Ottawa, Illinois, Catherine Donahue and several other former painters filed suit against the Radium Dial Company based in Alligates, and it's very similar to the one in the New Jersey case. And by then the girls who were once known as local celebrities for their work with radium paint had become known in the press as, quote, the society of the living dead. Oh my God. And that was given to them that moniker for their like deformities and illnesses.

That's a quote. Wow. Like Grace Friar and the painters from US Radium, Donahue and the others in Illinois spent years looking for a lawyer to even take on the case before they finally found someone to represent them. Ultimately, the women won. But it was at what Kate Moore, who again, we will cite in the show notes, called quote great personal cost. At the time, Ottawa was a kind of like a company town is what it's called, which is a town

built around a single company. And few people were reluctant to take on or even question radium dial because a lot of people still relied on them for their paycheck, their livings. And Morris said the town didn't really want to acknowledge what had happened. And there's evidence I've seen in their letters that the radium girls, that like the whistleblowers essentially, that their neighbors, the clergy and business people kind of shunned them. Wow. The clergy, their fucking church shunned them because they spoke up about dying from radium

pain. That is so ass backwards. Like what the fuck? Isn't there a whole bit in the Bible about community and like love thy neighbor? Like that they could turn on them? It's not love thy corporation bitches, it's love thy neighbor. Like that they could turn on them. It's not love thy corporation bitches, it's love thy neighbor I think. Exactly, I think.

And even though they won their cases, the awards were relatively small in the end with the company paying out $10,000 in total to the victims. Which is probably a nickel as far as they're concerned. Yeah, just nothing. For the victims of the radium extraction plants around the country, the legal and financial victories were definitely small and most died truly agonizing deaths in the few years that followed.

But still the truth about radium and the abuses of companies like US Radium and Radium Dial had gotten out. They had gotten people to hear these things and without them, nobody would have known. In Illinois, Congress passed the Occupational Disease Act as a direct result of Donahue and the others taking their story to the public. And New Jersey occupational state safety standards were changed as a result of the Radium Girls. It was all because of them, including a provision requiring all radium dial painters to be provided with complete protective gear. And in 1949, Congress passed a bill

making occupational disease like those experienced by the dial painters, something able to be compensated for and considerably extended the federal statute of limitations employees had to file a claim, Good. All because of them. Wow. Despite all that, the country had come to learn about radium in the 1920s and 30s. Radium paint was still used in manufacturing as late as 1960s. Shut the fuck up.

Albeit with far more safety precautions in place, but still. But still. According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the number of people harmed or killed by radium paint is unknown, but quote, it is estimated that over several decades, approximately 4,000 women around the country worked as dial painters. Now to this day, places like Orange, New Jersey and Ottawa, Illinois struggle with the legacy of radium extraction plants like US radium and radium dial. Decades later, large sections of land

on which the factories were sitting. Oh, I didn't even think of that. They've been deemed superfund sites, which is a place where hazardous materials were carelessly produced or stored or dumped. I didn't even think of that, wow. I didn't either. And in many cases, the toxins that were produced

on superfund sites seep into the groundwater and contaminate other natural resources, which put residents at risk for cancer, other maladies. Who knows? Somebody get Erin Brockovich up in here. That's all I could think of. Oh my God. That's all I could think of. I love that movie.

I do too. For decades following their deaths, the story of the Radium Girls has found its way back to the public eye many times over through books, plays, other cultural productions. But unfortunately, the companies responsible for those deaths were never truly held accountable. Motherfuckers. And the contributions of the women themselves has vastly gone overlooked in the long run, like if you really look at it, but finally in the summer of 2021. You're joking.

Yeah. Senators in New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois put forth a bill to formally recognize the lives and sacrifices made by these women. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez told the press, a century after the first radium girls started working in factories in New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois, we stand today to recognize their plight and the contributions of these courageous women

to modern workplace safety standards. And Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut echoed that sentiment. He said, this resolution honors the radium girls determined relentless fight for justice throughout the 20th century. After being deceived and misled about the risks to their health and safety, hundreds of workers suffered mysterious health complications and even died.

The Radium Girls' effort to hold corporations accountable for their callous, uncaring treatment of their employees paved the way for future workplace safety standards, saving the lives of countless others. We honor their memory by continuing to fight for the safety and rights of workers everywhere." That's incredible. And that is the story of the Radium Girls. It's just so crazy that this is like, I had heard of this before, but only from you, I'm pretty sure.

Like, that's something we should learn about in school. Absolutely. Like, I didn't learn about them in school. No, and I feel like we should. Yeah. I think so. That would make chemistry a whole lot more interesting. Let me tell you. That's what I'm saying.

Wow. And just like, the sacrifice that they made. It's an unbelievable story. It is. Because you just can't believe it was like, the book that I referenced many times by Kate Moore is called the Radium Girls. It's a phenomenal book.

I highly suggest it. Go get it. Like it's really, really fascinating. Yeah, I think we have it up here actually somewhere. It's a phenomenal book. It's so sad, fascinating. There's a movie. It's infuriating. Yeah, there is a Radium Girls movie.

I want to watch it. Yeah. I'm telling you the stories just the further you get into it, the more it will anger you. It will make you sad. It'll make you like inspired by these women. Like it's, it's got everything. It's all the pieces. Seriously. And the fact that these girls were like, fuck no. Like Grace Fryer is like no. Catherine Schaub is like no.

Like Donahue, like they're all just like, nope, you're not getting away with this. And even if we die because of it, we're gonna make sure that you can't do this to somebody else. Good for them. Like bad asses. Wow, what a horrifying tale. Truly a horrifying, that's why I said, I know this is like a different, that we're going to make sure that you can't do this to somebody else. Good for them. Like badasses. Wow.

What a horrifying tale. Truly a horror. That's why I said, I know this is like a different, it's a... It's still true crime. That's a fucking crime if I ever heard one. It's a crime for sure. It's just a different kind. I like when we do like, obviously I like all the stuff that we do, but I love the dark

history ones. I just, they're fascinating. Dark history is my favorite kind of thing to read about. Yeah. And there's so much that has happened in this world that you don't, like that we don't know about or you don't learn in school that, my God, I would have done better in school. Yeah. I would have been like, oh, okay, I'll apply myself to this.

Like this is fascinating and horrifying all at once. But yeah, and I think, I want to say the last radium girl when I was reading about it, she died at, which I was shocked by. Like one of the ones who was like in the factories was like 104. Whoa. Yeah, she lived like very long. But did she have effects? I'm not sure about her.

It was back in like, I want to say like 2014. And it's crazy that like, some people had effects and some didn't. And then knowing that you worked in a plant like that and then watching women that you worked with and then you're just sitting there, I'm sure wondering when is this going to happen to me? Yeah. Like when is my tooth going to fall out? And then the rest is just done.

Like I just saw on TikTok, I saw a bunny there. We love bunny. Which also she shouted us out on her TikTok and I shot myself essentially. She was talking about how they found like a small aneurysm in her carotid artery. But she had a second opinion and they don't think it is. But she described it and perfectly

how I think these girls must've felt. She described it as walking around with a grenade in her head. Yeah. And that's exactly like that hit for me when I was reading this at the same time. And I was like, these girls must have walked around seeing what's happening, like you said, to all their coworkers and friends and feeling like they're walking around with a grenade inside of them. That's just going to, when is it going to explode? When is it going to happen? Any kind of minor tooth pain, you're probably like, oh my god, like this is happening.

Like anything. You know, like when you when you hear about something and you're like, do I feel that? Like phantom pain? You'll hear about like an aneurysm or you hear about like a brain tumor and all of a sudden you get a small headache or something and you're like, oh my god, is this that? Yeah. Wow. It's a wild love story. What a tale, Alaina. Jesus. Thank you. Wow. Yeah.

Well, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But that's a word that you employ a bunch of girls and tell them, yeah, it's totally fine to eat fucking radium and nothing will happen to you. And then you know full well that that actually is going to do something to them and you say oh, I'm so sorry I will totally appear in the court case, but I just have to go in my yacht first Suck a dick Truly by said eloquently by Ash I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a If you like morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.