Episode Revisit: The Radium Girls

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Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. [00:30] Hi, it's Sierra Miller. I can't wait for you to check out my new collection of shoes and accessories at Designer Shoe Warehouse. If you love shoes as much as I do, then trust me, I got you. From cute sneak arenas to the perfect flip flops to stunning heels, these shoes are all style, no drama. It's a girls' girls' summer, and DSW has just the shoes. Shop the Sierra Miller collection right now at your DSW store or com. [01:00] You've tried melatonin, the white noise machine, the blackout curtains, the magnesium, and you're sleeping.

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[01:42] One real upgrade beats six mediocre ones. Head to com slash comedy. That's C-O-O-P com slash comedy for 40% off the starter bundle and 25% off all other bundles. Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbin. [02:12] This is morbid. I don't even know why I sang it. It just started happening and I went with it. Ash's... [02:21] Scunty. Yeah. [02:24] I believe the word you're looking for is scunty. It's scary and cunty. Me and Mikey have determined that. [02:36] she shall remain as such today. Oops, she opened a Diet Coke.

That was my Diet Coke opening, because that's a skunty behavior. She is in a place of skunt right now. Serving skunt, skunt, skunt, skunt. [02:53] truly serving scum we did magic this morning and i we did why are you laughing that's the truth [03:03] What? She's like, I don't know. We just did magic this morning. There's more to it. There's more. 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 abundance. I think because mine went crazy.

It did go crazy. And I think it just reignited my scunty soul. Yeah. [03:31] It said, baby, party on, player. I think it's supposed to. 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. [03:46] Is that good or is that bad? I think that's pretty bad. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Let me do a little Google. [03:53] Do a little goog. I need to get it under wraps. Do a little googie. [03:57] Yeah, it just went into retrograde.

[04:00] Oh, I'll tell you what it means for you and your astrological sign. Not all of you, but Capricorns and Geminis. Yeah, let's go. [04:06] Except the cookies, because that's the only thing you're allowed to do in life. [04:11] 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.

[04:32] The day after your birthday. The day of your birthday, Lena. 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. Oh, you Geminize. Geminize. [05:02] No, Capricorn. Chiron Chiron is a doorway between the spiritual and the human, and for the last six years, Chiron Chiron...

[05:10] Six years. We've been doing the podcast for six years. Whoa. Hopefully that's... I haven't read ahead, so hopefully that's good. 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. Huh? 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 spoonful of sugar. Also, just to say who I was reading that from, I was...

[05:39] oh that would be my tagline if i was i'm the medicine take a dose bitch there it is you found your housewives let's go one t-shirts um just to just to give credit where credit is due that was from the yoga journal thanks yoga journal you're welcome so all you capricorns in germana is out there now you know that one of you is the medicine and the other one [06:09] Yeah. [06:09] outside look glance at our relationship i love that sometimes you're the medicine though i hope so sometimes i don't always need that i don't always need the medicine you don't always need me no i'm i'm asking like i'm like okay good i'm not the one that always needs the medicine no that's good sometimes sometimes no a lot of the time i know i need the medicine i [06:32] Well...

[06:35] Speaking of medicine and chaotic, speaking of, you know, scientific advancements in medicine. [06:43] 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. You know, it's there. Yeah. [06:54] But we're going to talk about the Radium Girls today, everybody. This is a little different. It's a different... [07:03] True crimey, my tummy's growling. I don't know if anyone heard that. It's digesting the eggplant. It is. I had eggplant.

[07:10] But... [07:11] 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. 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. Yeah, because I don't know if I know. Without understanding radium... [07:39] 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? Yeah. So in 1898, after spending years researching the radioactive nature of mineral pitch blend, of which uranium is a major element. OK. Polish French scientist, you might have heard of her, Marie Curie. Marie Curie. Madame Curie. I thought that sounded familiar. And a hobby. Yeah. [08:03] Pierre. [08:05] They concluded that the pitch blend contained at least two other previously undiscovered chemical elements. One of these elements was radium. [08:14] Now, a lot of elements on the periodic table are freely occurring elements.

Yes. 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. Okay. But radium instead is a byproduct produced in the decay of uranium, another radioactive element. Oh, okay. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. [08:39] See, so radium requires a very long process of isolation in order to be extracted. [08:45] In fact, with the help of her laboratory assistant, Andre, I hope I say this right, [08:51] Debbie Aaron. [08:52] Debian. Debian. Madame Curie required several tons of pitch blend before she was able to extract just one tenth of a gram of radium.

Whoa. So it is... [09:05] 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 were like, holy shit, we didn't even know about that. 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. [09:35] focused on isolating pure metallic radium, which she achieved in 1910.

[09:40] That must have been a little bit scary for her. Oh, yeah. She's a badass. Yeah. 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. Oh, cool. [09:56] 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. Right. It was also true that although not as well established or understood, radium was seriously hazardous and very difficult to handle. [10:26] 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 tucked it was in a little vial yeah like a glass vial so he tucked that vial into an interior pocket of his jacket and then he exploded it's sealed it's [10:49] Didn't open up.

[10:50] 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... [11:01] 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.

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. [11:31] which is... [11:32] No bueno. Yeah. Because it releases alpha, beta and gamma radiation in the process, which is... [11:38] Very damaging to living systems and tissue in unchecked amounts. Okay. So while the glass vial itself might have been safely tucked away in his jacket, the element inside that vial was blasting out radiation waves directly into his skin. [11:54] Oh, my God. And probably like anybody that was even near him.

Yeah. Other people could have been exposed. Yeah. 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, it's not. [12:19] you can be disfigured or you can die. Wow. Because as we'll see in the, in this case of the radium girls, if it gets inside of you, you, [12:29] It just keeps...

[12:31] 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. [12:41] You could get, if you ingest this radium and you scratched your... [12:46] arm, it wouldn't heal. [12:49] you'd have an open wound. Forever. And that would be it. What the fuck? Yeah. 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 we if they could get it under control.

[13:04] particularly in manufacturing. In its process of decay, the particles inside of it charge one of its phosphorus components, zinc sulfide, [13:15] And this causes what a lot of people know about radium, a green glow. [13:20] Okay. Phosphorescence kind of glow. Yeah. [13:22] 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 was 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 S. to like harness the power of radium. Wow. [13:52] like what is this like what can we do with this fucking glows like what do we do with this cool brah it glows like we gotta 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 sashaki well uh who was a chemical scientist who in 1915 developed luminescent paint oh the paint seemed [14:18] to be.

[14:19] 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. [14:26] 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 from like the 50s and stuff, like a clock with like that green glow. Yeah, that's that. Oh, OK. So that same year, Sashaki 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.

[14:56] 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 is becoming 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 S. Radium. [15:26] 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 S. 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. Yeah. [15:49] Throughout much of the 20th century, factories and manufacturing jobs were... [15:53] Honestly, among the most reliable sources of employment for working class Americans of [15:58] 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 S. Radium, on the other hand, seemed 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 [16:28] factory job because unlike factory floors which were like dirty loud dangerous just like you're not where you want to be the application rooms at us radium were referred to as a studio oh where 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 [16:53] 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. Especially those who would never have access to it otherwise. [17:23] normal factory very well paid and it was just like no and i think they hired a certain they wanted a certain look for these factory where so they really went for like the whole vibe of this whole thing this is so interesting very interesting and [17:38] The job was simple enough at its core. Okay. 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, writing. [18:02] 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. [18:11] 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 worked, though, the radium powder got... [18:34] Everywhere. It covered the studio and it covered the painters and a fine coating. [18:40] of what they thought was [18:42] This fancy... [18:44] fucking powdered oh god that's it's rare it's this wonder element and i'm covered in it you know like and it's just like and it's not dirty it makes you glow yeah like it's it's got a luminescence to it you almost look like you're sparkling it's like 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 mm-hmm [19:07] 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 S. Radium from wristwatches, instrument panels, you know, 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. [19:33] were really critical to... [19:35] their operation and if they were going to be used or not. Like, for example, the smallest pocket watches that they produce measured just three and a half centimeters across the face. And like, so that's tiny, tiny little like millimeter things they had to paint.

Yeah. They couldn't just like swipe it over it. They had to like trace the thing. Yeah. [19:54] So to ensure accuracy, dial painters worked with really tiny brushes. They were like camel hair brushes and they had to, [20:03] 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. [20:14] 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. Because you're really doing this as fast as you can. That was going to make mistakes happen. [20:44] Thank you. [20:45] 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. [21:15] thin. Not covered in radium. No. [21:18] The girls, totally unbeknownst to them, while lip pointing was the standard practice in the, [21:24] It was not that way in Europe. [21:26] 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. OK. Like glass rods, sharpened sticks, even like metal needles.

Always more advanced. [21:43] And it didn't ever cross the girl's mind that putting the brush... [21:46] Covered. [21:47] 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. [22:05] miracle cures were being made with it like oh my 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 [22:17] Oh, why can't it be in my mouth?

[22:19] Even though it had literally like in a contained small vial, like burned that man. Yeah. [22:26] They just didn't release that information? A lot of this is... [22:32] 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. [22:43] 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? And the thing is... [22:57] They were being told by the people who own these corporations and factories... [23:01] It is completely safe. Right. Stick it in your mouth. It's fine. [23:05] Put it on your, like, whatever you, like, this radium isn't going to 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, 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, [23:32] 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. [23:48] Okay. They just weren't. [23:49] Yeah, science wasn't that advanced. 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. [23:58] In fact, despite the price of products containing radium, enthusiasm for the products seemed to be... [24:04] Never ending. I mean, it had like a boundless potential to be everything. For example, advertisements for Radathor, a health tonic, sold the elixir as a cure for the living dead. [24:17] and perpetual sunshine. [24:20] And it promised to cure everything from arthritis to gout. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. [24:25] 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 it was a catastrophic misunderstanding by the public because of the people on top. Right. People on top were causing this misunderstanding. They just wanted to get this. Go. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. [24:48] The public's misunderstanding of radium seems probably like we're looking at this today in 2024 goggles being like, oh. [24:56] Oh, my God. Why are you not understanding that radioactivity is bad? But in the early 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 of course. [25:21] It's going to be unquestionably positive, right? Like we're all progressing. We're evolving. This is great technology. [25:28] 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. That's a lot. I mean, look at arsenic eaters. [25:42] 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.

[25:49] 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 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 fad of consuming radium-based products whenever possible. So it really went the other way. [26:13] 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. [26:29] Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Apparently it tasted good. It's like pika. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. [26:45] Thank you. [26:45] Traditional old banks charge you overdraft and monthly fees. Why pay to get your own money? Chime is banking built for you. That's why they have thousands of fee-free ATMs. Chime members can earn up to $1,150 in annual rewards fee-free. And with a Chime card, you get 5% cash back in a category you choose.

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That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash morbid. [28:50] Clorox toilet wand, it's all in one. Clorox toilet wand, it's all in one. Hey, what does all in one mean? I carry the wand, the preloaded pad. There's a cleaner in there, inside the pad. So Clorox toilet wand is all I need to clean a toilet? You don't need a bottle of solution to get into this toilet revolution. Clorox clean feels good. [29:20] Thank you. [29:20] Now the problem, of course, was that radium was [29:27] Literally anything that's safe. [29:29] It was everything unsafe.

Quite the opposite. And although it did have promising applications in medicine, because we are able to harness... [29:36] Very unsafe. [29:38] chemicals. Yeah. When, you know, people know how to do that and make them safe, you know, like, but [29:44] by itself, [29:46] No, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't as a tonic or other health fad. Like they wasn't being safe in those usages. Medicine, sure. You're going to figure out a way to make that safe. Yeah. [29:57] tonics, health fads, [29:59] Fucking all that shit like toothpaste and shit. No, we're not getting it right there.

And by the time World War One was in full swing, the radium plants and their dial painters were working overtime to meet growing demand for these clocks and watches, all this stuff. Yet at the same time that these young women were inhaling and consuming small amounts of radium, they were not going to be able to do that. [30:20] 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, I mean, incredible.

It has the ability to destroy tumors and other cancerous growth. That's where we get radiation. Like, that's... [30:36] Of course, we look at it today and we say, like, where would we be? Right. You know, but the more they worked with it, the more they began to recognize that it's power to do that. [30:46] was indiscriminate. [30:47] it was just as likely to destroy healthy cells as it was to destroy health, unhealthy. So it's like, [30:54] This is not what we're looking for. We just need to harness it the correct way.

And we have not. And it's like, ah, now the whole world is just like eating this shit up. So it wasn't just the curies who knew it either. [31:05] the founder of S. Radium, [31:08] Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sashaki 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. [31:23] Early in the company's history, radium had actually gotten into Von Shashaki's left index finger. [31:30] And she said, quote, when he realized he hacked the tip of it off.

[31:35] saying it now looked as though an animal had not it. [31:39] What? This was because, according to Timothy Jorgensen, radium behave behaves very much like calcium. [31:47] 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. [32:03] What the fuck? Because it mistakes it for calcium. So it just takes it. It's regenerating. It thinks it needs to push it out to the rest of your body to reabsorb calcium.

And that's why it just... [32:14] destroys. [32:16] Because it just gets pumped out. That's horrifying, but it's also so fascinating. Exactly. That your body... [32:23] can't tell the difference isn't it why it kind of mimics so yeah like the body's so smart obviously and like there are miraculous things that the body does but then to to have something so dangerous into your system and to just be like oh calcium yeah 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

[32:53] dangerous. You just got so Boston. Extraordinarily. I don't know how to say that. Extraordinarily. Extraordinarily. That was great. Extraordinarily dangerous, but [33:06] He kept that little bit of knowledge from his employees. Oh, good. Which is the paint. [33:12] fucked up to say the very, very least. In fact, as soon as most painters were introduced to the lip pointing technique... [33:21] most inquired as to whether the paint was, you know, in any way harmful. That was everybody's first question. They're like, cool that I do this or nah. Cause that's the thing.

Like, you know, [33:30] It's not like these girls walked in there and were just like chemicals. Sure. I'll just eat it. Like they they asked the people in charge. [33:40] the people who should be telling them whether these things are dangerous. Right. And these people, all their managers would say, go for it. It's completely safe. [33:49] And knowing it wasn't. Knowing how bad it was. Now, within a few years, many dial painters in the New Jersey factories. [33:57] 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 were young, attractive. And those that earned a decent wage were often happy to spend at least some of that money to, you know, look good. They were getting the latest fashion. So they were always looked at as these glamazons that just like work in this fashion. [34:25] the studio painting with luminescent paint and they always come out, cover it, you know, like it was like this whole vibe.

[34:33] And above all else, it was the radium itself that made these girls instantly recognizable as being radium girls who worked in those in the factories. Yeah, because during their hours 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. Stop it. So they would walk out of there as the sun's going down and they're glowing. Yeah. [35:01] Literally. Yeah. [35:03] 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 girl shone like the watches did in the darkroom. Wow. [35:15] 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. Like that must have been like, of course, you want to just like idolize this situation. It just must seem so like otherworldly. It does. Yes, it absolutely does. Like ethereal. Yeah. Yeah. [35:38] Like some of the young women... [35:40] And girls would wear clothing to work that they wanted to wear to the dance later, like on Fridays.

Yeah. [35:46] 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. Okay. According to Moore, some found the paint made them sick. Okay. [36:10] One woman even got sores on her mouth after just a month of working there.

And within a few years, even those who love their jobs, like Catherine Schaub, 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. [36:29] And went to go see a doctor. And at first the doctor was like, oh, you know, puberty, you're 15. [36:35] So the doctor was like, you know, you're 15 years old. It's probably puberty. Yeah. Yeah. [36:39] 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. OK. And as far as Catherine knew, she didn't work with or even near any phosphorus. So the anomalies in the blood were just kind of like, this is perplexing. Yeah, that's weird. That's suspicious. Neither Catherine nor any of the other girls knew it. [37:08] But they were working in very close proximity to phosphorus, and it was beginning to affect them physically. Oh, God.

This was part of the whole thing. Right. The symptoms, but they weren't told that. Right. The symptoms of radiation poisoning were... [37:21] alarming to Catherine and her co-workers, but their minds were then set at ease. [37:25] Because Dr. Von Shashaki'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 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. Yeah. [37:53] Like they were just kind of like, whoa, this is so weird. Like, [37:56] It can't have anything to do with this. Oh, God. Including painter Grace Fryer, who recalled... [38:02] quote, nasal discharges on my handkerchief used to be luminous in the dark. [38:08] 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.

[38:20] With the radiant paint. No. Mm-hmm. [38:23] Oh my god! [38:27] Now, despite their employer's 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. [38:42] Some, like the worker who complained of the mouth sores after a mouth. Yeah. [38:47] 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. [39:04] 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 managers would just misdiagnose them with sexually transmitted diseases. Are you kidding me? [39:30] To smear the reputations of the women. Knowing full well what was actually happening. Yep. 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 go right ahead. Go talk to your doctor about it. [39:55] 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 and [40:18] 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 pain. [40:29] that the sockets wouldn't heal. [40:32] 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.

[40:51] You can Google radium jaw. [40:54] 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. Oh my God. At the same time. You had a... [41:15] Yeah, that's the one. [41:17] That's the one. Uh-huh. That's the one. Oh, that's so sad. It's just a total jaw gone. [41:24] You both did the same gasp at the same time.

We're both air signs. [41:29] And I knew you both looked. Yeah. Yeah. [41:32] Again, at your own risk. It's graphic. [41:35] 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 [41:45] But yeah, so while there was still a demand for luminescent watches as the war ended in 1918... [41:52] That demand was not enough to keep the hundreds of dial painters employed. Like there was a lot of dial painters. [41:58] So the companies, including

S. Radium, cut back the workforce. Okay. Still used them, though. And many of the painters who were then in their late teens and early 20s chose to quit their jobs and get married and start families. Okay. [42:12] But this started a second wave of really scary symptoms. Oh, no. Now that these girls are saying, well, I want to start a family. Right. [42:20] Even before attempting to get pregnant and have children, many of the painters had noticed that [42:25] that they had... [42:26] Very strange changes to their menstrual cycles. Yeah.

Yep. And then when they began trying to get pregnant, they struggled to conceive and eventually learned that they were sterile. [42:37] Oh, my God, how heartbreaking. Yeah. And finally, many of the women who were able to conceive somehow were soon... [42:45] absolutely heartbroken by stillbirths. [42:48] by miscarriages, and by, quote, deformities in body structure of their babies. [42:55] That's so fucked. [42:56] The far-reaching consequences of this are astronomical. Truly. The first death came in 1922. [43:04] 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. [43:23] Weeks later, however, she was still experiencing pain and... [43:28] That socket had not healed weeks later. So she went back to the dentist who diagnosed her with pyoria. [43:34] which is an inflammatory disease of the gums, and started treating her for that. [43:39] Weeks later, however, it got worse and so had her intense lower jaw pain. 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 have been so terrifying for her to have like suddenly start experiencing that and then have your doctor have no fucking idea why. [44:09] There's no way to stop it. [44:11] 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. [44:33] And in fact, at one point, and this is very graphic, just so you know, [44:37] At one point, the dentist literally used his fingers to literally pull pieces of her jaw out. [44:45] because it just crumbled like dust in his hands. [44:52] I... Yeah. [44:53] Oh. Like, open wounds in her mouth. Oh, my God. And he just... [44:59] essentially scooped her jaw out with his hands unintentionally but it just crumbled to dust your jaw like 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 uh and he just scooped it it just turned out [45:24] Because that's what it does.

It destroys the cells. And then you're just disfigured. [45:29] Oh, yeah. [45:31] 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. [45:41] Yeah, of course. Like rotting flesh and bone. Think about like you have like a cavity and you're like, oh, fuck, I got to brush my teeth extra. Yes. [45:48] But hers is literally rotting. Like a whole side of her face. Yeah. 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 compounds, just hoping to clue in on her problem. [46:08] 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, those people. And the situation continued to confound her doctor, her dentist, Dr. Neff, [46:24] and those with whom he was consulting he was trying to get anybody there 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 [46:40] So you might as well shut down production.

And just be honest, like try to save some people. Yeah, like call an L&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. [46:59] having largely disintegrated at this point, was removed. Oh, and they had to remove pieces of her inner ear as well. [47:07] 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.

[47:16] It was at that time that doctors discovered whatever had affected Molly's teeth and jaw had now spread out. [47:22] and was eating away at her throat. [47:25] Oh, my God. So they were unable to stop this, which is horrifying because they just got once radiation, once it's in there. [47:33] What are you going to do? 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. [47:48] Oh my god.

[47:50] On September 12th, a little past 5, [47:54] Molly's jugular vein erupted. [47:58] because it had been eaten away. [48:00] hemorrhaging blood so fast that her sister who was by her side while she was in bed [48:06] could do nothing but watch her bleed to death and choke on her own blood. [48:12] It was literally a river of blood pouring from her mouth. [48:15] And she just choked to death on her own blood. That's literally like something out of a horror movie. She drowned in her own blood. [48:21] Oh my god.

Yeah. [48:23] Like that is one of the most horrific things I have ever heard. [48:28] 100%. [48:29] Just this young girl. Yeah. Her body just gets eaten by... [48:34] They're all like in their early 20s, sometimes late teens, like they're young. [48:39] Oh my god. [48:41] And 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, he just couldn't do anything. They just threw up 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? Yeah, I can't. [49:03] 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. So because they're very, I guess they're chemically very similar. They can be mistaken by the, you know, your body. The 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.

[49:33] 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. And, [49:58] Which is when they were informed that although he had kept the diagnosis from her at the time, he hadn't told Molly.

[50:05] 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. Mm-hmm. But she did not have syphilis. Because that's what they would do. They would just label it something like that. The company... [50:23] As you can imagine, the S. Radium was very excited to be able to use that cop-out. [50:28] as C- [50:30] It wasn't radium poisoning. It was syphilis. And it's not our fault.

[50:36] Yeah, wrong. When they know that wasn't the real cause. No. Now... [50:41] To do that to her in death? Yeah. Like, are you kidding me? And the worst thing is, it's like they would have, like, a coroner's jury at this time. Yeah. [50:48] where like it was just like layman on a jury that would like all agree on the concept you know i mean like it wasn't well done so it's like doctors or anything like 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

[51:07] 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 we it's not like we have social media where everyone's gonna blast out what the fuck's happening in new jersey over here right [51:27] 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.

[51:42] Oh, my God. And to think what that's going to do to an 11-year-old. You have no chance at that point. None. [51:48] Like the girls at S. Radium, the new painters at Radium Dial quickly became, you know, local celebrities in Ottawa, making the job and... [51:57] 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.

[52:15] That sounds awesome. Anybody would be like, holy shit, I want to sparkle for my job. However, unlike S. radium, product and material waste didn't seem to be a priority at radium dial. S. radium is shit, or was shit, but... [52:32] radium uh radium dial worse didn't give a shit about how dangerous this substance was um