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The Radium Girls: The Workers Who Exposed an Industry
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In the early 20th century, young women lined up for one of the best-paying factory jobs available to them: painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark radium paint.
To keep a fine point on their brushes, workers were instructed to twirl the bristles between their lips. Company literature assured them radium was harmless — even beneficial. It was neither.
The Cost of “Safe”
Years later, the women began suffering horrific bone deterioration, jaw disintegration, and cancers directly traceable to radium exposure. When they took their employers to court, they had to fight against a company that had known the risks and hidden them.
Their legal victory helped establish the right of workers to sue for occupational injury, and directly shaped modern workplace safety and labor law in the United States.
How many workplace safety standards we now take for granted trace back to people who had to fight for them the hard way?
