![]() Numerous novelties flooded the market in the years after the world war. By the end of World War I, the United States was producing over four million watches with illuminated dials for military use. The army was the first and also the largest customer of radium-lit products. The name was later changed to 'United States Radium Corporation'. It was marketed in 1917 by the Radium Luminous Material Corporation. This paint named ‘Undark’ was a mixture of zinc sulfide and various forms of radioactive radium. Dr Sabin Arnold Von Sochocky developed the first commercial luminous paint. William Hammer was the first person to combine radium, zinc sulfide and glue into a luminous paint. Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium in 1898 and Marie also discovered that radioactive radiation could make materials glow. The luminous property of the element radium was already known long before it was used in clocks, watches and other instruments. ![]() Radium dial by By Arma95 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Images: Waterbury Clock by By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0. With thanks to The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore. If you enjoyed this story, you may also want to read about child labor here. However she lost all her teeth and suffered from colon cancer and breast cancer. She had only worked as a dial painter at Waterbury Clock for a few months, which probably extended her life. In 2014, May Keane, the last of the radium girls, died in Middlebury, Conn., at 107. Waterbury Clock also wangled a change in Connecticut’s workmen’s compensation law, shortening the statute of limitations to three years from five. ![]() The New Jersey radium girls did win a settlement, but USRC managed to wriggle out of further liability. USRC argued in court that no other cases of radium poisoning existed. I have heard a number of rumors such as you have, but know nothing about them,“ wrote the commissioner. In 1927 the lawyer wrote to the workmen’s comp commission in Connecticut. She told the New Jersey lawyer to look into the Waterbury Clock Co. She had identified the occupational dangers of the Danbury hat factories, and she heard about the Waterbury girls. The company settled out of court, but Katharine died at the age of 30 after suffering excruciating pain.Ī Harvard professor named Alice Hamilton tried to help. Katherine later contracted radium poisoning and, with four other dial painters, sued USRC. She had worked as a dial painter in Orange, N.J., at the United States Radium Corporation (USRC). In 1920, Katherine Schaub had come to train the radium girls at the Connecticut watch studios, including the Waterbury Clock Co. She was also one of dozens who died from radium poisoning. She was one of hundreds of young immigrant women hired to paint luminous paint onto the popular new watch dials in Connecticut – in Waterbury, Bristol, Thomaston and New Haven – and in Orange, N.J., and in Ottawa, Ill. ![]() Her mouth rotted until she had a hole in her check. When a dentist pulled a tooth, part of her jaw came with it. She developed severe anemia, and her teeth hurt. In 1925, Frances Splettscher died of radium poisoning after an agonizing illness. They painted their dress buttons with it and their fingernails, and they painted rings on their fingers. The radium girls believed their supervisors. The company told them it would give them glowing health. The radium girls didn’t think radium carried any danger. The radium girls’ ailments mimicked a condition called phossy jaw ![]()
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