Watchlords

I have known about this story for quite some time now, years in fact but never thought to post it. Recently I have become very tired of shysters talking about LUME on dials. Well this is the true story about the cost of that lume in the early years.



The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark paint at the United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey, around 1917. The women, who had been told the paint was harmless, ingested deadly amounts of radium by licking their paintbrushes to give them a fine point; some also painted their fingernails and teeth with the glowing substance.

Five of the women challenged their employer in a case that established the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEMRJSu5vvI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

http://www.waterburyobserver.org/node/586
http://www.rst2.edu/ties/radon/ramfordu ... 0Girls.pdf


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/03/0 ... rls-Part-I#

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/03/0 ... ls-Part-II

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/03/1 ... s-Part-III

How tragic!

OSHA can be a real pain in the ass, but they are desperately needed!

Sadly reminiscent of the asbestos industry.

The 'dark matters' series on the science channel did a fairly good dramatized version of the story, including the cover up and law suit. I don't know how accurate it was but it went a lot further than the usual anecdotal nature of the story.

Great story and links Alain. I remember watching a documentary on this a ways back. I recall from the documentary a lot of the women even used it as lipstick. Very sad.

Wow

Watch Noob wrote:Great story and links Alain. I remember watching a documentary on this a ways back. I recall from the documentary a lot of the women even used it as lipstick. Very sad.

Dozens of boyfriends and husbands in the tri-state area had glow-in-the-dark mushroom headed yogurt slingers, by golly!

A great topic and an important story. Yeah, even the watch industry has its cover-ups and dirty secrets. Frankly, I can't think of a bigger black eye than this; imagine - people dying from working on watches.

In a way, this symbolizes what's wrong with business: They'll fucking kill you for a nickel or a dime. What companies like GM and Toyota have been up to of late certainly ain't nothing new.

TemerityB wrote:A great topic and an important story. Yeah, even the watch industry has its cover-ups and dirty secrets. Frankly, I can't think of a bigger black eye than this; imagine - people dying from working on watches.

In a way, this symbolizes what's wrong with business: They'll fucking kill you for a nickel or a dime. What companies like CM and Toyota have been up to of late certainly ain't nothing new.

Too true, it's easy to dismiss, but the result of all that radium if I understand things correctly was that their bones began to disintegrate, their teeth fell out, their jaws disconnected, and of course death wasn't far behind.. terrible stuff.

Radiation poisoning is supposedly one horrible death. From what I see it has done, in very tightly focused beams to treat cancer, I don't doubt it.

No thanks...

You guys should see what Chernobyl did to Europe and parts of Asia. Ditto Fukushima in Japan and Asia. Without getting into the whole no-nukes-is-good-nukes thing, I was one relieved dead guy when SDG&E announced they were closing down the San Onofre nuclear power plant; I'm rather fond of my testicles just the way they are, thank you...

I missed this Koi, great read and a sad story.

I can't believe nobody's said it yet, so I will:

How's the lume??

Fukushima...did much more damage to the environment than publicized. Hush Hush Mush Mush.

Mortuus wrote:You guys should see what Chernobyl did to Europe and parts of Asia. Ditto Fukushima in Japan and Asia. Without getting into the whole no-nukes-is-good-nukes thing, I was one relieved dead guy when SDG&E announced they were closing down the San Onofre nuclear power plant; I'm rather fond of my testicles just the way they are, thank you...

Yup. Low-hanging.

conjurer wrote:

Mortuus wrote:You guys should see what Chernobyl did to Europe and parts of Asia. Ditto Fukushima in Japan and Asia. Without getting into the whole no-nukes-is-good-nukes thing, I was one relieved dead guy when SDG&E announced they were closing down the San Onofre nuclear power plant; I'm rather fond of my testicles just the way they are, thank you...

Yup. Low-hanging.

At my age, I always use 'em when I get asked for two forms of ID...

As an update, NPR is did a tribute program on them last year. The audio can be downloaded in MP3 format or you can listen to it on line. The comments section went from comments on the story to politics as usual.

http://www.npr.org/2014/12/28/373510029 ... ntent=2054

Where did summer go?

I was going to make a joke only to see that I already made it 3 and a half years ago.

This is absolutely unreal, and it really gives me pause on about four different levels. Must reading, I believe. And it's horrifying - whatever you do, at least scroll through all six pages of this.

This is from a site called ATI:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/radium-girls

In 1917, scores of patriotic young girls counted themselves lucky to have landed war work at a large warehouse complex in Orange, New Jersey.
The pay was fantastic – roughly three times the average working girls’ wage – and the work was light. Literally, the work was light as the main job the young ladies were given was to apply glowing paint to the faces of clocks, instrument gauges, and wristwatches for the United States Radium Company.
Once a thin layer of white paint, impregnated with the newly discovered element radium, was layered onto the dials, their hands naturally glowed and made them easier to read at night or in a dark trench in Flanders.
Without exception, the “radium girls” were told the paint was safe to handle, and so virtually no precautions were taken while they handled and even ingested countless doses of radioactive poison.

What a nightmare for these young ladies and their families..

Wow..I knew just passing info about this.
Very tragic

Women making radium dials back in the day.

koimaster wrote:

Women making radium dials back in the day.

With Eyal Lalo's granddad in the foreground.

Something is wrong with that image...my spidey-sense says its been manipulated