Stuff You Should Know - The Radium Girls

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

The Radium Girls painted watched with glow-in-the-dark radium in the 1920s and '30s. Most got sick, many died. This is their story.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place? Because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life

Tell everybody yeah, everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Welcome to stuff you should know a production of I heart radio Hey and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. COVID Bryant Why? Do you want me to to intro you like that Chuck? Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag. Yeah, we wanted to start this episode off with a PSA I've COVID everybody and the reason I'm making this so public is a couple of reasons

One to remind everyone that we're not out of the woods yet. I'm vaccinated fully Mm-hmm. This is almost 100% likely the Delta variant. There's no way to prove that because I've done a lot of research there. They're only testing for variants in like specific places than using Statistics to like blow that out to the whole Mm-hmm, but it is the it just like this week It was breaking news that it dropped from about 90% the vaccine effective to 64% against the Delta variant. Yeah, I mean that would that alone would make me suspect. That's what it is

Yeah, and it's the most dominant strain. It's the most likely to bust the vaccine Mm-hmm. I went out of town over the weekend with friends and like 40% of that group have COVID now So and they were vaxxed so oh my god. It is no joke everyone. We're not out of the woods Please keep taking it seriously. Please get vaccinated Vaccinated if you haven't and if you can use this, I know we're probably preaching to the choir mainly but if you can use this example To try and convince someone you love to get vaccinated that is hesitant then that's why I'm saying this Well, Chuck, I know Jerry would never come on and say this but we're very very glad that you're doing okay And we love you very much. We're very proud of you Jerry doesn't express herself emotionally like that. No, she does not like you do

No, I'm well known for that kind of thing But the good news and the final reason I mention it is also get vaccinated because it is doing at least part of its job in that I had a couple of days of feeling pretty bad with a cold and Have had four days now of feeling pretty good and it is it is doing its job and keeping it very mild and I Tick off a couple of categories where if I wasn't vaccinated it may not be so mild. Yeah, you know that that's why you're L You CK why you ain't got no alibi you lucky. All right. Well now we can talk about Some not so lucky

Young women That's true. I'm hats off to you for that PSA to by the way. Sure. I never finished. I never finished Chuck There's Jerry Jerome Roland over there right right stuff. You should know that's right So now you can take over my former duties of introing the episode. Well, I mean, it's just funny this is another not funny, but I feel like we are diving more and more into sort of the horrors of Not only just the workplace, but I feel like we've covered a lot more over the past couple of years these situations in America's history where

corporations have tried to just Bury things that made them look bad at the expense and the lives of people that work for them Yeah, we've been examining how terrible life is without government regulations. That's right another PSA It's true. And like you said, we're talking about some unfortunate women who Were gravely mistreated in part because of like the the the place in time that they occupied But also because they were women and because there were again, no workplace safety laws or anything like that But they despite, you know everything that was stacked against them including things like their gender they they

Basically rose up and in established some of the first successful lawsuits Against employers for basically workplace abuse or at the very least workplace their election of duty yeah of the employer to Look out for worker safety. I think that's the technical way to put it. Yeah, and you know, we're talking about the radium girls and There was a movie about this. It's not we loved the hundreds of emails about the ghost of How do you pronounce it again? The brotherhood of the beast brotherhood of the wolf That's right was the name of the movie and apparently on the only yeah, the only person who has never seen that movie Yeah, same here and same here like I think we are the only two

I I don't I can't remember getting more emails about a single thing than that one Yeah, they're literally still coming in and I I do remember once I saw the trailer I was like, oh, I know that movie a little bit, but I didn't know the story But there was a radium girls movie from three years ago that I sort of half watched today It's I don't want to I don't want to disparage anyone because Filmmakers tried to get the word out about an important event in history But I'll just say that the Roger Ebert comm website gave it one and a half stars and that's the only thing I'll say

Out of how many stars? 100 Wow, it was not very good. You got a one and a half percent. That is wow. Yeah, I did not watch that one I haven't read the book yet either but one of the problems with taking up something like this is like It was the same thing with Henry at a lax when we did our episode of killer cells Where it's it's really hard to kind of dig past the wall of journalism Surrounding like the release of a popular book. Yeah And anything that is written in that book and that books take on the story all of that stuff

basically becomes It like that's it. That's that's just that that's this person said this and this person played this role And you know, it just becomes like the the story I guess is what I'm trying to say Fortunately for radium girls and and I'm not taking away from Kate Moore's book at all from everything I've seen it was extremely well researched and like it did a really great job of bringing this to the to the forefront here But fortunately, there's also like a lot of scholarship Scholarship that was written and can in researched before that that still exists on the internet

So you can kind of like get into some other details too besides well the book said this and the book said that right Also, fortunately, we had our buddy Dave ruse help us out with some research too and Dave hates books He does he's always burning books. No Dave in fact is the one that said we should definitely mention Kate Moore's 2017 book the radium girls colon That we should have a sound effect for colons now What if we had like one of those in studio courses that go colon or colon? Be great. Okay. We need a barbershop quartet. Yeah, that'd be good

The radium girls insert sound effect the dark story of America's shining women Yes, I'm not sure if I like that pun But yeah, not one but two puns the dark story America's shining women. Yeah, there it is Yeah, so the whole thing about radium and and the radium girls and that's what the press dubbed them They also I believe called themselves the Society of the living dead which is some pretty serious gallows humored considering like the state and shape that they were in They they were They kind of came out of this era where radium like the 19 teens the early

1920s the first the first radium girls are actually two sets as we'll see but they came out as era where Was there three? Yeah, there was another factory that we're not even gonna have time to talk about Okay. Well, let's say there's what what decade was that one? I think it was the same decade I think it was just another factory that you know, we just can't do the two-hour show. I got you So they well, we're well on our way already But they existed in a in an era where radium was seen as this thing that was just this amazing Cure all tonic a wonder of nature that was Put in all sorts of different

Products from cigarettes to condoms to there's a water called ratatouille. That was Irradiated water that radioactive water that you would drink To get the radioactivity in your body because it was you know thought to give you like health energy Vitalization cure all sorts of diseases. It said that it bathed the stomach and liquid sunshine and all of this was pretty new stuff because it wasn't More than two decades before that Marie Curie and Pierre Curie Um discovered radium in the first place back in 1898. Yeah, I mean they discovered it and I think they even named it I think Latin radius means ray and they knew that it emitted rays of energy even at that time and

You know are very early on they started using radiation to try and help treat cancer Like hey, let's put this in a lead box and cut a hole in it and then put that hole over Over the human body like aiming it toward where a tumor might be like very obviously rudimentary stuff And you have to make a beep beep Sound the whole time that was kind of one of the roles of the technician at the time. That's right and you should have seen the audition tapes Some people had zero rhythm. It'd be like beep beep. Sorry. You're well qualified, but Uh so Curie actually she died In 1934 from a plastic anemia, which is a bone marrow disorder caused by radiation exposure

so they knew that it was dangerous and But it was still like like you said it was in the you know, it was known as a cure for the living dead in that Radithora water mm-hmm and I Mean basically used for everything from gout to fatigue and it was just one of those crazy times in American history where now We look back and we're like this is just nuts But yeah, and they didn't know Well, so there were two tacks from what I could tell there was the beginnings of academic scholarship and both of the Curie's Had some sort of suspicion and there was this idea that there was

Easily you could be exposed to too much. You didn't want to have too much radium But a little bit was good for you But then there was also this academic tack that was like no this stuff might not be good at all Like we should really be careful with this But the popular the popular idea of it Yeah, you read in the newspapers or you know, maybe even what your doctor thought about it All came from radium research that was almost exclusively underwritten and in a lot of cases Carried out by companies that made their money off of radium like they were just touting this stuff as a an amazing wonder

element basically and and so there was like almost these two Overlapping worlds that weren't connected at the time in our understanding of radium and like the 19 teens in 1920s right so one of the other kind of cool and interesting things about radium is that it can make things glow in the dark and And glow in the dark is very sort of like who cares now still kind of fun But in the 1920s glow in the dark was a very big deal It was basically the future and kind of space age and if you had a glow-in-the-dark watch or a glow-in-the-dark clock Then you felt pretty cool basically because you could see that thing in the dark and so of course these companies Wanted to start painting watch faces and clocks with radium and they've got young women and sometimes

Even girls as young as like 14 years old to do this stuff. Yeah, I think the first company at first They were working on military clocks and military dials like you might put in an airplane or something and the first Company, I think that was established to do this was United States radium back in 1916 in New Jersey Orange, New Jersey, I think and like you said they hired young girls very very young girls I think the oldest one I saw by far was 28, but for the most part they were in their teens to early early 20s and This was like a really big deal job like that was very highly paying. I think they were in the women who painted Radium or watch dials with radium paint. We're in the top 5% of earners in America at the time

This is a factory job. Yeah, and then also is prestigious too from what I saw. Yeah, the movies and you know I don't know if it's accurate or not. I'm gonna say what the movie said the movie said that they were paid a penny per face And a high earner could crank out 200 a day. So that's about two two dollars a day Okay, so that's like a million dollars today. I think that's also what the movie said well a million dollars Double that and that's about what a gram of radium cost Yeah, and today's dollars that is I think it was like a hundred grand a gram in the 1920s for a gram of radium So they were they were they were themselves highly paid But they also were working with what was at the time the most expensive material on earth

And it makes sense that it would be so expensive like radium is really rare It's super radioactive, but it's really it occurs in very small amounts Which kind of lets you realize how radioactive it is that you know It's a daughter isotope of uranium whereas uranium decays one of the things that it becomes is is radium And in uranium ore, I think the curies when they first Discovered radium they they they found that after they took uranium out of this ore pitch blend Which we talked about in the uranium mining episode that the pitch blend was still Radioactive so like what else is in here and out of ten tons of

Uranium ore they managed to extract one milligram So it would make sense especially at the time that it would cost a couple million dollars for a single gram of that stuff Yeah, and so these girls and young women were This stuff was getting in their hair. It was getting on their clothes It was sort of a badge of honor because you would go out that night on dancing or something and you would glow a little bit They would even purposely put it on their teeth sometimes they were called ghost girls and it was it was

It wasn't a fad in that it was widespread because only a select few like had their hands on it But I think that's one of the reason the girls like these jobs is because they could go out and like Attract attention because they had this glow in their hair and on their dresses Yeah, I think also people knew that they were working with radium and radium at the time was like Missy Elliott mixed with ecstasy back in the late 90s like as cool as it got you know what I mean goodness Yeah, thanks. I'm just trying out some new stuff. How's it going? It's good In fact, I think maybe we should take a break. I need to re-examine that analogy so I can really fully grasp it You just let it sink in buddy

Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do? You've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you oh god, seriously I swear and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you Oh, man, and so will my husband Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush Boyband or each week to guide you through life step by step not another one

Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life Just stop now if so tell everybody ya Everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts So Chuck I got to say before we start back again, you don't seem like you have COVID are you faking? I'm not faking. I am a little spacey though You're doing great. I mean you've researched an episode of stuff You should know probably the most challenging podcast on the planet

Yeah, sure, and you're presenting it like just like an ace so hats off to you again. Well, thanks, man you got it so You were saying before that the radium girls were covered in Radioactive dust yeah, and they were because they would mix their own paint And they worked with a specific kind of paint called undark. It was a proprietary blend where they would mix them They would basically mix it with water and a little bit of solvent and create their own paint from this radium dust So radium dust was like all over the place, which is bad enough You know you can get pretty radioactive from being exposed to radio radium dust like that

But it was far far worse in those working conditions because they were actually Ingesting the radium through the paint as well. Yeah, I mean this is where if you think this already sounds like a workplace violation This is where it just gets bonkers Because they would actually you know if you're painting a one millimeter wide number on a watch And I think the watch faces themselves were like three and a half centimeters you have to have a tiny little point on the end of that paintbrush and Painters know one way you can achieve this is something called lip pointing which is when you dip the the brush in the paint in this case radium and then you put it in your mouth and

Just sort of press it down with your lips to make that point finer, and they were doing this with radium they were literally ingesting like orally ingesting radium in their mouths, which means orally and and Inviting cancer into their bodies unknowingly. Yes Which is some pretty I mean, that's not good like when you're ingesting the paint itself Apparently there was a guy who worked for Prudential the insurance company back in 1925 He published a paper his name is Fred Hoffman Frederick Hoffman

And he calculated that the radium girls who painted these watch faces because of that lip pointing technique They were ingesting something like one and three-quarter grams of this paint every day It's a lot of money had to lip point so much It is a lot of money from the viewpoint of the of the the factory owners You'd think they would have been like no we got to stop that because that is a lot of paint But that's also a lot of radium that they were taking in too and the big problem with that Is not just that you know, it's getting inside of you now, and it's burning a hole right through you It's not really doing that radium is a an alkali earth metal

And it just so happens that calcium is also an alkali earth metal and to your bones They're they're the same thing your body doesn't differentiate between the two and we our bodies are set up to divert Calcium basically from the bloodstream right to the bones to help build strong bones, you know And we do the same thing with radium to our bodies too So when you ingest radium it enters your bloodstream and it goes right to your bones and it sets about Screwing you up big time from that point on. Yeah, and apparently some of these young women were saying, you know They're asking questions early on they were saying like is this bad for you can it hurt you? And the you know the US radium

Corporation was I mean they started covering up very early what was going on they were doing their own research and they said and of course the people that were making that radium water did the same thing they would have they would hire out these Private companies to do this research basically and say everything's fine And they said, you know ingesting a little bit is just fine a little pool of rose in your cheek and it's great And I guess they just sort of full stop there They didn't talk much about how much ingesting a gram every time you did that over time would be like over a period of years I think in 1916 they put out their own publication

Yeah, from the radium publishing company that said the physiological action of radium sounds not unlike a fairytale right Which is weird and they said that the red blood cell count surges So you you will actually kind of seem a little healthier. I couldn't find that anywhere From what I saw you it causes hemolysis, which is like the rupturing of red blood cells but This is the kind of stuff that like these publications were peddling and doctors in the public were just taking it wholesale And that was where that idea that radium was good for you came from was from publications from people like the radium publishing company

there was just a lot of Credulity at the time I guess Which is weird because this is also like one of the the most Averacious periods in American history as well. What does that mean? It means that like people were preying on other people for for profit and money that like that you would do anything for a dollar You know, okay avarice Okay, makes sense now. I'm a little I have covered take it easy on me that I will And I'll let that one slide and I don't know if I've said this or not. I know Jerry wouldn't but we're really glad you're doing good

And it's funny in that factory. They didn't Say anything about the fact that like oh, you know, can this be dangerous because I've noticed all the men that are working around radium are wearing these big lead smocks and aprons and They're handling this stuff with ivory tipped tongs. What's the when we're putting this in our mouth and they're like, don't worry about that Yeah, and it wasn't so at at u.s. Radium in Orange, New Jersey It was it's it was part of the corporate culture to basically just treat it really Cavalier Lee like even the head chemist Edwin Lehman who would pay dearly for his cavalierness was recorded by an investigator who we'll talk about in a little bit

as Basically, just handling lumps of radium or like raid like radium powder Without any kind of gloves no protection no lead apron anything and just kind of just you know scoffing at the idea that that it was it was You know dangerous So, you know, some people they're knew that it was dangerous and treated it so but the corporate culture in that company in Particular was that you know, don't be don't be ridiculous. Who cares stop stop talking stop asking questions kind of thing Yeah, so this next part I'm gonna issue a trigger warning because it certainly got me with my tooth fears So if you have dental fears and tooth fears, just be warned

This is from Kate Moore's book and it's about the very first I think the first young woman to fall ill at the the US RC. Her name was Molly I don't know if it's magia or magia And this was in 1922. She was 24 years old She said she felt like she was about 90 She had this really I mean she ached all over but she had this pain in her lower jaw specifically and then eventually went to the dentist had these These abscesses that were just oozing in her mouth and her dentist tried to pull some of her teeth that were rotting and a

part of her jaw literally came out and It says in in the book he removed it not by an operation But merely by putting his fingers in the mouth and lifting it out And I think a few days later Took out her entire lower jaw the same way just pulled it out of her mouth. Yes. That's horrifying And if you have what's known as dentophobia, you're probably on the floor right now It may never go see a dentist again No, I hope no one listened to that it got me as well man when I was just like this is not this is so wrong

The crazy thing is is Molly magia She she lived for I Believe another year or so With this increasing abscess and like the radium was sitting in her bones in this particular case in her jaw and her teeth and Just decaying the tissue around it the bone around it and she just basically rotted from radiation poisoning From the inside of her jaw out and she suffered from abscesses and eventually died from an abscess The this abscess apparently your whole the whole left side of her face

The different abscesses grew into one mega abscess and it finally reached her jugular vein and just ate away at her jugular vein And she could no longer pump Pump pump blood from her heart. Yeah, see now I sound like I have The the I mean that is horrific as you can imagine and it gets worse in that When her doctors were asked what their best guess was of the cause of death, they blamed it on syphilis Right the company jumps on this and says and this was a big part of the movie they basically start saying that these girls are Spreading syphilis around each other and that's what they're sick from. I think in the movie they call it VD, of course

But it was you know one part to sort of shame them into being quiet and to say that in another part to just obviously You know take the blame as far away from radium as possible men Yeah for real so, you know I'm not to say in the in the doctor's defense, but they did no one knew what what Radium poisoning was at the time, right? So it's not like syphilis wasn't an entirely, you know, just bonkers diagnosis

But there was another thing I saw that that that they considered to that just didn't make sense But had kind of come and gone before among matchstick makers Which was something called fossi jaw or phosphorus jaw where you're you're like if you were exposed to white white Phosphorus which matchmakers were when you're making the head of a match it It basically gets Absorbed into your jaw and rots your jaw so they had kind of seen something like this before but not since like the early 19th century it was much more prevalent in the 18th century and

They didn't think that these these women were working with phosphorus anyway So it was kind of baffling, but yeah the idea that that you know, even if the doctor did Naively or innocently, you know say it was syphilis or something like that the company very much jumped on that kind of thing to use It to paint that Unflattering picture of the women who would go on to litigate this company and it was Totally that kind of a company and it was run by those kind of people for sure US dial was Yeah, so 12 and up to this point 12 of them died think about 50 of them were ill at this point and

They are still full steam ahead. They don't haul production at all They don't even call for an investigation until 1924 when it leaks out to the press a little bit and they start to get it You know some sort of bad press about what might be going on So they commissioned an independent investigation that found out that there was definitely a connection going on and that they're exposure to Radium is leading to these illnesses and deaths and they buried it and got their own Not independent commission together. They investigated and came back and said. Oh, no, no, no these young ladies are suffering from a hysterical condition brought on by coincidence Yeah, and that was actually not even like a panel's opinion. That was

Arthur rotor the president of US dial. It was his opinion. Yeah, that was his opinion of the whole thing and that that independent investigation Was a legitimately independent investigation. It was led by dr. Cecil drinker and his wife dr. Catherine drinker who are both Harvard Harvard public health professors and when they came up with these findings like yeah, this is this these women are all dying Horrible deaths from radiation poisoning from eating this paint because of this stupid lip-pointing technique And the company did bury it not only did they bury it? It's even worse than that they took the drinkers report and Altered it so that it said that every girl is in perfect condition and then submitted it with the drinkers name on it to the New Jersey Labor Department and

And like the drinkers had no idea they also told the drinkers if they published their initial report they would sue them that they've been working confidentially and Like I was saying like it was just that kind of company. They were just they would engage in dirty tricks They would do some of the most underhanded stuff you can imagine like they I've got one more anecdote Chuck This is gonna knock your socks off. They hired a Industrial toxicologist named Frederick Flynn from Columbia to basically pose as a doctor to examine one of the the dial painters And basically tell her that her health was fine

She was in fine shape and they had a VP from us dial sit in and make it seem like he was a Colleague of this person who she thought was a doctor who emphatically agreed and backed up his position. That's the kind of stuff US dial did Reprehensible Agreed Chuck agreed. All right, so we should probably take another break and we'll talk about how everything changed a little bit right after this Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road, okay? I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place?

Because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh god. Seriously. I swear and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man, and so my husband Michael Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life Step by step not another one kids relationships life in general can get messy You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now if so tell everybody Yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen So we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts

All right, so everything changed when a man got sick and that's that's basically the way it went in 1925 a 36 year old chemist at at US RC died of anemia and the Essex County Health Examiner Guy that'll figure in pretty prominently here going forward. Dr. Harrison Martland got involved and You know, this is this is what it took. It took a man dying for them to sit up and pay attention He launched an investigation. He it was it was very sneaky actually. He actually secretly recruited the technical director

From us RC as a radiation expert and his name was this is one of the best names We've ever said on the show. Dr. Saban a the Von Sakaki Mm-hmm, and they took autopsy tissue from Some of the bone from these young women who had died Or I'm sorry from the original chemist and they analyzed it and they said yeah, he's he is basically glowing with radiation Yeah, I have to say also. Dr. Von so Chucky or he was even more than just the technical director He was the co-founder of US radium and he actually created the radium paint undark that the company used So the idea of him basically turning

On the company in order to get to the to the bottom of you know, what was going on I you know, I think that's pretty commendable in that sense. It is He got he and mark Marth land got a Geiger counter. I think it was sort of a early crude version basically and they started going around to the houses and in the hospitals where some of these young women were and Everything was radioactive They tested employees at the plant that even weren't sick. They were radioactive. Basically everyone that worked there was radioactive including

Von so cocky himself. He breathed into the thing and I think he registered the highest radioactive level of Everybody and died within a few years from from jaw cancer yeah at age 45 and From what I saw also if you took a guy a Geiger counter to the gravesite of these people who worked at these factories Still today the the Geiger counter would measure would set off. It would be set off by the radioactivity coming from Six six feet of earth separating you and and the remains and that nuts did it will do that for 1,000 years Wow and Supposedly the bodies are still glowing underground. I saw that one woman who worked at another one. We'll talk about

Radium dial company. She was exhumed to be examined For I think a lawsuit later on and they found that she was so radioactive that when they reburied her They buried her in a lead line coffin. Yeah, I Mean, this is super radioactive, right? I think we've established that it's just hard to wrap your mind around how Radioactive these people were and it's crazy that they even live some of them live for you know a few more years like like Molly magia She died pretty quickly the woman whose jaw came out She she died within a couple of years some women lasted four or five six even I think even seven years possibly and

The amount of radiation they were exposed to and the effects that it had on their body made From the time they got sick to the time they died just basically like a living hell and the fact that they're still radioactive today really kind of drives home like how How painful that must have been for them because apparently bone pain is not It's not like regular pain at all Like you know if your muscle hurts or joint hurts You can just kind of like move your arm or something and it starts to feel a little bit better with bone pain You can't do that. Nothing makes it feel better. It's just like constant pain

And that's what you get when you have radium in your bones so five of these women got together that we're still living obviously and And went to court or they didn't go to court right away. It took a long time It took a long time for them to get enough money together to hire attorneys because there wasn't anyone initially who would take these cases pro bono until it took years to raise the money to do this and One of the woman's name was a grace fryer. She was basically the leader of the factory workers and She had to wear a back brace because her spine had basically rotted out from the inside

And was crushed Uh, she had 20 at least 20 surgeries on her jaw Uh, another woman's name was albina lorice She had two still bursts and couldn't walk Another woman was kathryn shalb She I think her cousin died was another fellow worker there And so they were like we have to do something here Um, they were you know, they had all these medical bills. They couldn't even basically pay rent

And finally after a couple years managed to find an attorney who would take it on pro bono and um You know, they they did they knew they didn't have long to live at this point And it's not like they wanted some windfall of money They just wanted to get by until they died and they wanted to make sure that this didn't happen again Yeah, and again, this is like new stuff basically where workers are like these were unsafe working conditions We're going to sue our employer. This is pretty like groundbreaking. So initially the women asked for I think 250,000 a piece

Each for all five of them and their lawyer, um, reyman berry He apparently was a really good lawyer and really kind of fought the good fight for him And one of the ways that they were Ultimately successful because it's kind of an understatement to say that us radium fought this Uh lossy rather than settling um was that they recruited the the press basically and in particular The editor of the new york world the guy named walter litman um Took up this cause and like you know at the time the new york newspapers were like the most important

media organizations in the world and the new york world was like one of the bigger ones So it was like, you know, it was having like all of the 24 hour news networks on your side Drumming up public support for your cause and that really helped them But even in the end they didn't get anything even remotely close to that quarter of a million. They were asking for So what the radium corporation did at first was they said You know in new jersey the law says that we only have to pay you anything if it's within the first two years Of your exposure and because it took so long for them to raise this money. It was beyond that point Um, which is just a pretty vile thing to do. Obviously

Um, eventually they settled for $10,000 each Plus five. I'm sorry $600 a year For when they were alive, which was only a few years for each of them. I think Within five years all of them had passed away Um, it was later exposed that the judge in the case was a stakeholder in us rc That's what which is really Pretty dirty obviously And then I think by 51

30 years later 41 of those original painters had died from different cancers Yeah, not a single one of the um original five litigants from the the lawsuit Made it past age 38 And that's like you have by the way a 0.1 percent lifetime risk of developing bone cancer bone cancer is really rare Like you can get cancer in your bones if you have a different cancer that spreads to your bones But to start out with bone cancer like many of these women did it's incredibly rare Um, so the idea of a cluster of them all happening in this one factory and the company having nothing to do with it Was preposterous. So the fact that they just got to settle for 10,000

per woman was actually kind of a coup. But one of the things that the the um five uh initial five radium girls were fighting for was to um To to create awareness that like this is dangerous And there's other other women out there in the country and in the world who are doing the same thing Eating radium pain every day and we want this to stop and it actually did have that effect that knock-on effect And not one but chuck as you told me before to my establishment two other cases um where

Companies were basically forced to to um to settle and eventually radium paint was driven out of use Yeah, the other one or one of the other two was the radium dial factory that we mentioned earlier in auto illinois and You know, I don't know if you can rank like Which ones were were more gross and dirty and awful, but radium dial They actually did know what was going on the whole time for years. They had been Uh testing their employees. They had doctors coming in and they were giving them annual physicals And they were recording radiation levels and they just never told them basically

Uh, I think before they went and filed that lawsuit They were just suppressing information bearing everything they could they did they even did autopsies and then tampered with those autopsies I think that's what you were mentioning earlier. Was that the other company did that too? Mm-hmm, and they also lucked out by having an amazing lawyer too. They were led by two women katharine wolf donahue and charlotte nevin's persel kind of took the lead for the the lawsuit against um radium dial and this is You know years after this had made like the national press the the um us radium Lawsuit like it was a everybody was talking about it and for years some companies managed to avoid any kind of culpability

And finally donahue and um and persel Um with the help of their lawyer lennard grossman filed lawsuit against radium dial um They tried some underhanded stuff themselves in addition to the whole autopsy thing But once they were found out they they decided to shut down and then reopen in new york as a different company And they said oh, yeah that other company was terrible, but it doesn't exist anymore We're a new company now. So forget that lawsuit and uh, they were they were ruled against and were held accountable still

Yeah, and uh, obviously like you mentioned because of all of this it was a Very big deal for this country as far as work workers rights safety in the workplace um, it kind of directly led it took a long time, but it kind of directly led to the um to the forming of osha Uh, which was a big deal. I think it directly led in 1938 to the uh, the food drug and cosmetic act Um, and of course this was for the public at large

So we weren't ingesting stuff like that in our cosmetics, but it also protected workers who were putting that stuff in the cosmetics Mm-hmm years years after the public was protected for sure But yeah, it definitely had like a real a real impact and a real effect on on the world Um, one of the things I saw though about radium dial corporation's headquarters It was finally demolished in 1968 in Ottawa, Illinois and the The town used the the like rubble as backfill and landfill around the town So now there's 16

radioactive superfund sites around poor little Ottawa, Illinois Um, that the epa is dealing with cleaning up and is causing all sorts of problems for the um for the residents of the town So it was like this one big problem and then they spread it out all over town when they they used the rubble Yeah, not super fun Super fun. There's a there's a really important d on the end of that Got to really over pronounce that d Agreed You got anything else about the radium girls?

I don't I mean the movies on netflix you can check it out. It's uh, it's a little late to endorse it now Well, I mean, it's not terrible. I think on rotten tomatoes. It had like a 70 something But it it just uh critically wasn't well reviewed and um, also not by me I see I got you. Um, well since chuck said also not by me, of course everyone that means it's time for listener mail Uh, I'm going to call this a nashvillians response to the grand old opry joe Uh, hey guys, just want to give you a shout out about how much this native nashvillian Enjoyed your episode about the grand old opry. I grew up hearing about the rhyman's perfect acoustics In stories of country stars drinking at tootsie's bar behind the opry until it was time to go on stage

And running through the aligning back doors. My first job was actually at opry land theme park. Oh, wow I wonder if we met uh, it was at the water ride in the flume zoom I think I do remember you camille Uh, immediately across us was the porter wagner stage and mr. Wagner himself performed every friday I now live in chicago and honestly, it's a little hard to visit nashville since it's become a destination hot spot For bachelor and bachelorette parties. I didn't know that Did you know that? It didn't either. No, it makes sense though. I mean, I know that's where you had your bachelor party

I'll never forget that night. Sure, nashville is crazy Uh, plus skyrocketing rents and new developments have pushed out a lot of locals and mom and pop businesses Future episode recommendation Reprocussions of being an it city Uh, but listening to your episode reminded me the quirky little city I grew up in plus. I learned some cool facts about the opry I didn't know a long time fan that is camille A long time fan that is camille mccarthy That is high praise coming from a

OG nashvillian, you know Yeah, and camille also responded when I told her it was going to be a listener mail With a big woohoo. You guys are awesome. I just snucked out your venus episode while grocery shopping fantastic Well, thanks a lot camille appreciate that. I hope you got some good groceries Uh, hope you wore a mask while you went grocery shopping, and I hope you're vaccinated Nice full circle there. Yeah, uh, if you want to get in touch with me chuck jerry chucks covid

Whatever you can write us all an email to stuff podcast at iheartradio.com Stuff you should know is a production of iheart radio for more podcasts my heart radio visit the iheart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows Hey, i'm lance bass host of the new iheart podcast frosted tips with lance bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boybander Each week to guide you through life tell everybody you everybody

About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye. Bye Listen to frosted tips with lance bass on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Introduce the biz tape you're all things music business and media podcast join me joe wasleski and my co-host Collin mckay every wednesday where we discuss the breaking news changing the music industry And what your favorite artists and creatives are up to listen to new episodes of the biz tape Every wednesday on the national podcast network available on iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts