Painted With Poison
They painted glowing dials by hand and were told the radium was harmless. It was destroying them from the inside — and the companies knew.
During and after World War I, young women were hired to paint watch and instrument dials with luminous radium paint. To keep a fine point on the brush, they were taught to wet it with their lips — “lip, dip, paint.” They were told the paint was perfectly safe.
The Glow
With every brushstroke they swallowed traces of radium. It settled in their bones. Jaws began to crumble — a condition doctors called “radium jaw.” Meanwhile the same companies that called the paint harmless had their own scientists handle radium behind shields and screens.
The scientists wore shields. The girls were told to lick the brush.
The Fight
As the women sickened and died, a group of them sued. The cases against the radium firms were brutal and public, and they established a principle American law had resisted: that an employer can be held responsible for knowingly poisoning its own workers.
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Many died young and in agony. Their lawsuits forced the country to admit a company can know it is killing its workers — and say nothing.
You've Seen the File.
The companies knew radium was lethal and called it safe. Negligence — or a calculated cover-up?
The Radium Girls — Kate Moore
The bestselling account of the dial painters and their fight for justice.
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