Many of the other girls had similar symptoms. When the dentist went to examine her, he accidentally broke her jawbone simply by gently touching it. The strange illness kept spreading to her jaw, roof of her mouth, and even her ears. As fast as her dentist pulled one tooth, another started hurting and needed to be pulled. It started with a toothache and quickly spread. In 1922, Mollie Maggia, a radium girl, became severely ill. Some girls even painted their nails, faces and teeth with radium. In contrast, the girls, including 18-year-old Grace Fryer, wore their best dresses to work so that the radium would make them glow in the dance halls that night. The company’s own chemists used lead screens and tongs for protection. Management lied to workers, saying radium was safe and offering no protections, even though it was known to be dangerous. They ingested a small amount of radium each time. After mixing radium powder, gum arabic paste and water to create the paint, they put the brush tip between their lips to create a fine point. To keep their tiny brushes accurate, workers used a technique called lip pointing. These “radium girls” were paid $20 a week, making radium painters one of the best paying jobs for women. They mainly hired teen girls for the delicate work of painting the dials and faces of watches and compasses with radium. 1922įactories started opening, including the U.S. Photo: Radium dial painters working in a factory, ca. In 1917, the United States entered World War I and soldiers needed watches and compasses they could use at night. Radium was in products as diverse as creams, water bottles, chocolates and toothpastes. Radium companies published misleading research touting its benefits and fueling this popular belief. Radium was the new craze in 1917, sold as a cure-all for many ailments. This was the case with a radioactive metal valued for its luminous glow. Often in the early 20th century, new innovations and technology came onto the market without fully knowing the risks.
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