Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women

This week’s book was recommended to me by my aunt about a year ago, and I’m finally getting around to reading Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore.

 I guess the story of Radium Girls starts with Radium itself, which was discovered in 1898 by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie. By 1901, it was known to be radioactive and toxic to people. This did not stop the burgeoning Radium industry from declaring it the newest wonder drug, good for all that ails you. They literally sold capsules of Radium for ingestion. And it was known and used for painting numbers on watch faces due to the luminescent effect: The dials would glow in the dark.  

 So, with the advent of World War I, the United States Radium Company (USRC) in Orange, New Jersey, was opened to provide the glow in the dark wristwatches which were in high demand for the boys being sent to Europe to fight in the trenches. And so they hired, as any company would do when they suddenly had a huge swell in demand for their products. Hundreds of girls signed on to paint the watch faces. And they were all trained in the same fashion. You take the brush, swirl it in the paint. Once the brush is coated, though, the bristles will be all flared out, which is no good for the fine detail work of painting a watch face that was typically less than an inch across. So, the girls were then trained to use their lips to pull the bristles into a fine point. So over and over again, they dip, lip, paint.  

 And no one thought anything of it. While Radium was known to be hazardous, and the guys in the lab who did the actual extracting were protected with lead aprons against the beta and gamma rays thrown off by the radium, the alpha rays, which are by far the most dangerous, were so weak they were easily stopped by a piece of paper. It was believed that because the girls were using such minute amounts of radium, it was not harmful to them. The only indication any of them ever had that dip, lip, paint could have detrimental effects was one day, when Grace Fryer was steadily at work, USRC plant owner and lead scientist Sabin Von Sochocky was walking through the plant and he saw her dip, lip, and paint, and said “Do not do that. You will get sick.” Von Sochocky should know...he’d lost his thumb to radium when a chunk fell directly on him, and he’d had to amputate. He was also trained directly by the Curie’s. So, he definitely knew about the hazards of Radium. But beyond one warning during a passthrough at the plant, nothing was ever done to stop the practice. 

 Now, among the perks of working at the plant, was a solid wage...a girl could earn a lot of money painting dials. They were paid by the piece, like .015 cents per dial, at an average 250 watches per day, would be about $3.75 per day. Adjusted for inflation that $112 per day or about $672 per week, given that most worked about 6 days per week. Sounds like small potatoes but in the early 1900’s when everything was still on the gold standard, that was a solid, upper middle-class income. The girls bought new clothes, hats, enjoyed going out dancing with each other and with their boyfriends, and enjoyed helping their country out, supporting the troops. And all the time they glowed. Like, literally. The fine particulate radium dust coated them at the factory each day, so in addition to what they ingested daily as part of their dip, lip, paint routine, they were covered in it when they left. And USRC was kind of cheap about it, they’d have the girls shake out their clothes so the radium dust could be collected again the next day. 

 Not at all like Radium Dial Corporation in Ottowa, Illinois, where they encouraged the girls to play with it and take it home to practice technique. There are anecdotes in here about how on their breaks they’d go into the dark room and paint each other’s faces to see the glow. And eat lunch at their workstations. Right next to the radium. 

 Now....with the benefit of 100 years of hindsight, and the knowledge that Madame Curie was buried in a lead lined casket due to her radioactivity because of her work with radium, my eyes were HUGE the whole time I’m reading this, because I just know nothing good is coming. 

 Remember those alpha particles.... the ones where 95% of the danger of radium comes from the alpha particles which are so weak, they can’t even pass through paper? Well, they pass through clothing just fine. And when you are directly ingesting it, day after day, 10 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week.... that accumulates pretty quickly in the system. 

 Radium, like calcium, attaches to your bones. And most of the girls started feeling it in their bones first. Their feet might hurt a little more than usual. They might have an ache in their back. And these are young girls. I believe the youngest she mentioned was Katherine Schaub, who was just 14 when she started working at USRC. No earthly reason for one that young to be having foot and back problems. But the first to really fall, at least as chronicled in this book, was Amelia “Molly” Maggia, who had been 19 when she started working at USRC.  

 I say as chronicled in this book, because there is always the possibility that another died first, and it was not suspected of being related to the radium and so never investigated. That is no fault of the authors, it’s just a possibility. So, Molly Maggia, like all the girls, dip, lip, paint. She kept on working at USRC after the war, even though quite a few of her compatriots had left for other employment. For Molly, it started with fatigue, and a toothache. Duly, she went to see the dentist, and had a tooth extracted. But the hole where her tooth used to be would not heal. It just kept oozing pus. So, she went to another dentist for a second opinion, choosing Dr. Joseph Knef. Who treated her for Pyorrhea, which happens when plaque builds up along the gumlines. But she STILL wasn’t healing, and more of her teeth seemed loose.

 Throughout all of this, she’s still working at USRC....dip, lip, paint... even with her sore mouth. And she became less social at work, due to the bad breath that accompanies a mouth full of pus.  

 And then Mollie began having aches and pains everywhere. She was diagnosed with rheumatism. And sometimes when Mollie would see Dr. Knef, her teeth would just fall out of her mouth into his hand. The doctor thought she might actually have syphilis. But the test came back negative. He asked her what she did for a living and when she said dial painter, he thought it might be Phossy Jaw, which happens because of prolonged exposure to phosphorescent paints. But there were no phosphorescent used at USRC. Just radium. The company confirmed this and assured Dr. Knef that there was no way her illness was connected to her job at US Radium Corporation. Eventually, Mollie had to quit her job. She was in too much pain to continue working as her entire jaw had turned into one festering abscess. In May 1922 when went to see Dr. Knef and as he asked her how it was going, she indicated the bulk of the pain was in her jaw. He went to probe, and a chunk of her jaw just broke off in his hand. Just fell the fuck off. If that doesn’t make your butthole pucker.... 

 It was so bizarre he kept the chunk of jawbone in an office drawer, only realizing the radioactive effects later when he went to pull some x-ray’s out of the drawer, and they had been erased by the radiation emanating from this jawbone. Mollie died in September 1922 of a hemorrhage. She was 24. Remember....19 when she started. Dead at 24. Less than 5 years from learning dip, lip, paint....to being marked dead due to complications from syphilis. She did not have syphilis. The second test run was a false positive. And yes, a later exhumation cleared her of that shameful prognosis (shameful for 1920’s... nowadays you just get a penicillin course.) 

 So, Mollie was the first to fall, but other girls were getting sick, and the illness followed a similar trajectory. I think all of them lost teeth and jaw bones. Grew sarcomas. Most experienced having a leg actually grow shorter so that they developed limps. And not just in Orange. The girls in Ottowa were about 6 years behind, only because Radium Dial Corporation didn’t open until after USRC had. 

 Now, the laws at the time were pretty carefully crafted and yes...the girls sued. Most notably, Grace Fryer, Katherine Schaub, Quinta Maggia McDonald, Albina Maggia (note: Quinta and Albina were Mollie’s sisters), and Edna Hussman. And they had an amazing lawyer, Raymond Herst Berry, who became so proficient at fighting USRC that at his final settlement conference with USRC on the last radium case he worked, the company refused to settle unless Berry agreed to be leashed and never sue them again. But that was a later case. For THIS case, with the five girls, USRC eventually reached settlement, paying out $10,000 each (about $208,000 in today’s currency), a pension of $600 per year for life for each woman, past AND FUTURE medical expenses, and USRC covered all court costs. 

This was HUGE. And USRC tried to wiggle out of it almost immediately. The future medical costs were dependent on the girls being seen regularly by a three-doctor panel, one appointed by USRC, one chosen by the girls, and one agreed on by both sides. But if at any time two of the three doctors agreed a girl was no longer suffering from Radium poisoning, then the medical benefits would stop immediately. And even though USRC managed to sway that third neutral doctor into basically being someone they picked, it shocked the shit out of USRC when month after month, all three doctors kept reporting the girls were truly ill and likely to die at any time. Even more frustrating, the not having to worry about bankrupting their families stress of illness lifted enough weight from the girls that they...quite rudely...just kept on living! Not forever though. 

 Grace Fryer died on October 27, 1933, five years after the verdict. She was 34 years old. She had worked at USRC for three years. Katherine Schaub died February 18, 1933. She was 31 years old. Quinta McDonald died December 7, 1929 at 29 years old. Albina Maggia died November 17, 1946 at 51. I like to think USRC was particularly outraged at that $600 per year for LIFE pension. And Edna Hussman died March 31, 1939 at 38 years old. Even Edna and Albina, who managed to keep plugging on for one- and two-decades post-verdict, respectively, lived painfilled lives, with teeth that fell out and jaws that disintegrated, sarcoma’s and bone and joint pain. And USRC NEVER admitted Radium had anything to do with it. 

 Now, for the Ottowa girls.  

 Their health fell into a similar downward spiral. Illinois and New Jersey have very different laws, and Radium Dial Company, in trying to get ahead of the news stories coming out of New Jersey, started having doctors come in and see the girls in the plant. Radium Dial Company did two things as a result of this. First, they never released the results of these medical tests to anyone. Not even the girl’s attorney under subpoena was able to retrieve those records...a situation that would never happen today, but RDC was able to sidestep it with legal maneuverings 100 years ago. And the second thing they did was to take out full-page ads in the local paper that Radium was 100% safe, the girls had been medically tested and were in the pink of health with no ill effects from the Radium. 

 And the girls had no reason to question this, despite their own failing health. Mary Ellen “Ella” Cruse is the case that really started the girls thinking that the company might not be telling the whole truth. She was 24 in August 1927 when she, for the first time ever, took a sick day. Four years, 25 days a month, 8-hour days, no vacations. She went home on Friday. And never returned. The next day, she went to a doctor, who tried to lance a pimple she had developed on her chin. But nothing came out. But the pimple kept swelling. She called in on Monday and Tuesday of the next week and by Wednesday she was admitted to the Ottawa City Hospital with septic poisoning on her face. That was August 3, 1927. By September 4 she was dead. Her “spiral” was one week.  

 Catherine Donahue developed a limp. In the wake of the USRC news storm and Ella’s death, even though Donahue was willing to keep working, she was fired for her limp. It was bad for company morale. This was well before the Americans with Disabilities Act, so Catherine had no recourse but to go home. The only saving grace is that she owned her house outright, having inherited it from an uncle. And her husband still had his job at the glass factory. This allowed them to mortgage their property to help pay Catherine’s mounting medical bills.  

 And her friend Charlotte Purcell, who had left RDC awhile before, ended up having an arm amputated at the shoulder due to a fast-growing sarcoma. Shortly before they filed suit against RDC, Catherine and Charlotte went to RDC and confronted shop foreman Rufus Reed to ask him for their medical records and to ask if he knew Radium was poisoning them. Reed said, “You look ok to me.” Charlotte with her missing arm and Catherine who was fired for the limp she developed as a result of her bones shortening from Radium poisoning. You look ok to me. 

 In Illinois, they were not able to sue due under Workman’s Comp laws due to industrial poisoning not being covered. So RDC argued and won on the fact that Radium was a poison, and poisoning was not covered under the workman’s comp law. After approaching every attorney they could think of in Ottawa and Chicago, Catherine and her husband Tom in desperation wrote to Clarence Darrow, who was known to take hard cases regardless of ability to pay. Unfortunately, Darrow was 80 years old and not in good health. But he did the best thing possible...he referred them to Leonard Grossman. Who took the case pro bono. And I don’t think he ever received payment. He was an old-school crusader who took the case for the horrible injustice that had been done to these women.  

 And due to corporate sleight of hand that would NEVER fly in the 21st century, RDC had only $10,000 total that could be used to payout damages on any lawsuits in Ottawa...EVER. This was because of the USRC cases and a very high-profile incident involving rich playboy and industrialist Eben Byers. Byers was injured in 1927 after which his doctors prescribed Radithor...name brand radium water. Which Byers consumed in the amount of several thousand bottles. The headline, when he died, read “The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off.” Byers died of radium poisoning on March 30, 1932. And Radium as an industry became uninsurable. The only way RDC could keep operating was to front a $10,000 bond to the workman’s comp board on their own. And after doing this, RDC pulled up the stakes and moved to New York. Where the litigants could not reach them. 

 So, Grossman takes the case pro-bono and wins. Quite handily. Before the Illinois Industrial Commission. But each girl’s cases had to be heard individually. Catherine’s was heard first and that’s the one that won. RDC appealed and it became a race against the clock because Catherine was clearly dying. And because this was not a court, but rather a workers panel, if she died before the appeal was settled, her estate would get nothing. Fortunately, the panel overhearing the appeal recognized the desperation of the situation and rendered its verdict in favor of Catherine. RDC would appeal, literally all the way to the Supreme Court. Which Catherine would not live to see. But RDC lost every appeal, and I believe Tom Donahue was able to collect those damages.  

 Charlotte’s decision to have her arm amputated brought her decades and she lived to see her grandchildren born. And that, ultimately, became the girl’s longest lasting contribution. I mean, there were massive changes in the law, nationwide, so that now corporations are mandated to give you copies of your health records. OSHA was born out of this.... some good and some bad with that. But when WWII ramped up and dial painters were again needed, actual protection and protocols were put in place so that none of the new batch of dial painters went through what the Radium Girls did. And when the Manhattan project began, there were non-negotiable safety protocols the scientists insisted on, as a direct result of what happened to the Radium Girls.  

 And I think ALL the surviving Radium Girls answered the call when the Atomic Energy Agency put out notice that they wanted to test them and see how long the radioactivity lasted. They all responded. The relatives of those who died agreed to exhumations, not just to their daughters, but to children who had died early because of proximity exposure. One of the dial painters they exhumed was Margaret “Peg” Looney. Peg had been 24 when she died on August 14, 1929. They exhumed her body in 1978 and she was found to have 19,500 microcuries of Radium still in her body. This is more than 1,000 times the safe amount. 50 years after death.  

 Now, this book was released in 2018 and not too long after that, a movie was made with the same title, using some of the same motifs. I THINK the movie was loosely based on the book. So loosely based that just watching the trailer I knew this movie was gonna piss me off...and not in a “that’s so outrageous how could this happen” kind of piss me off, but more in a “way to shit on the memories of the women who actually lived this” kind of way. They got the head lawyer’s name right. At least his last name. And the company doctor for USRC, Dr. Flint and the company owner, Arther Roeder. And Dr. Martland, who was the New Jersey medical examiner who figured out the connection between Radium and the illnesses the women experienced. Dr. Katherine Drinker was a real person, although her husband is suspiciously absent in the movie. But the women who suffered under this...they are nowhere in here.  

 The lead character was Bessie Cavallos, who wanted to be an actress.... because of course. In Hollywood land, there is nothing more tragic than an actress not getting to act. The real-life tragedy of a woman who wanted nothing more than to be a wife and mother experiencing multiple miscarriages before having to have a complete hysterectomy due to the radium induced cancer of the uterus...that is not tragic. Katherine Donahue, who had been receiving treatment for pernicious anemia, which she developed as a result of her exposure to radium and had to stop ALL treatment when she found out she was pregnant, thus accelerating her decline.... THAT Is not a tragedy to Hollywood. To Hollywood....well why wouldn’t she just get an abortion? Because she was Catholic and very close to God. God and her family were her solace throughout the entire ordeal. Not having the baby was not an option. That child being born mostly healthy, yet only weighing 10 pounds after one year.... that is not tragic to Hollywood. 

 Hollywood REALLY leaned on that misdiagnosis of Syphilis that Mollie had.... basically showing Dr. Flint diagnosing ALL he girls with syphilis. That never happened. Hollywood leaned on Dr. Flint not being a medical doctor...which is true. He was not a medical doctor, and the women’s attorney Berry filed a complaint with the New Jersey medical board against him for practicing medicine without a license. That happened. And New Jersey didn’t care. He wasn’t a medical doctor, but he did have a PhD, so the Dr. Title was not necessarily inaccurate. Just extremely misleading in this case.  

 So the real tragedies of the day are masked behind Hollywood bullshit, where they try to paint the communist party as the real heroes, who pointed the way to the consumer league who put the girls in touch with doctors....because the reality of the girls finding doctors on their own, doing their own leg work, finding their own attorney....THAT Sort of search for justice is not to be mentioned in Hollywood, unless it’s in context where only communism can save us all from rampant consumerism and greedy capitalists. For reasons why that is wrong, see my reviews on Mao’s Great Famine and The Gulag Archipelago. 

The movie SUCKED....Like there are not enough words to accurately express how disgusted I was with Hollywood’s bullshit slinging on the glories of communism and how evil America is. I’m so glad I only rented it instead of actually buying this crap.  

 Now, in reality, this book had outright villains, just like history did, it had its heroes and heroines, and the everlasting tragedy that results when corporations put profit before people. Look, you know I’m an anarcho-capitalist, but this.... Stories like this are why communism keeps rearing its ugly head.  And why THIS story was ripe for such overt propaganda by Hollywood. This is corporatism.... Not capitalism, this is what happens when corporations use their power to buy politicians and push through slick laws that protect themselves. This book was excellent. It was such a fast read; I’d set myself a goal of fifty pages a day and before I knew it I’d read through 100. And it is tragic, the lives cut short and the horrifying agony and disfigurement these beautiful women went through. But their legacy is unquestionably one of righteousness and hope for the future. I HIGHLY recommend the book.... But skip the movie. I think I actually saw my brain at one point from how hard my eyes rolled. 

This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on January 15, 2023, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.