Radium Girls

Author: Nora Lewis

Suggested citation:

Lewis, N. (2026). Radium Girls. Technology Assessment Project Case Study Library, University of Michigan. https://stpp.fordschool.umich.edu/tap-case-study-library/radium-girls

Radium Girls

Key Takeaways

• Marginalized communities are often exposed to the "riskiest" jobs, and viewed as expendable by corporations.
• These unsafe conditions may look like unequal information sharing about risks of work, as well as a lack of physical safety equipment and compensatory medical services.
• "Invisibilized risks" are often harder to pin down legally, and may open the door to corporate or government negligence and the undermining of compensation efforts for workers.

Brief Overview of the Radium Girls

Between 1917 and 1926, the U.S. Radium Company (USRC) engaged in the extraction of radium for use in the luminous paint Undark, principally used for painting watch faces used by American soldiers during World War I (NJ Gov, 2016). With a defense contract and a factory in Orange, New Jersey, the company employed over 300 people (mostly women) to apply radium paint to various objects. Employees were encouraged to press the point of their paint brushes to their lips, giving their strokes a more exacting edge without the need for more costly and time-consuming water rinses or rags. On average, most painted roughly 250 dials daily for a cent and a half each, mixing their own radium-laced paint each day (Grady, 1998).

Over the years, and as operations of the USRC expanded to an estimated 4,000 workers across the U.S. and Canada, workers began to fall ill with mysterious symptoms (Grady, 1998). This included tooth decay, the necrosis of the jaw, amputated limbs, and it would be discovered years later, several different forms of cancer. As employees began to exhibit these signs of radium exposure with greater frequency, several brought legal cases against their employers. The case of these women, dubbed the "Radium Girls" in ensuing media coverage, became particularly well known during one trial in 1927, where five former factory workers filed for damages against the New Jersey plant they were once employed in (Dabbs, 2018). The case was well-publicized, largely because the five women were so visibly ill, with none able to even raise their right hands for the oath while present in court. Other women employed at a Radium Dial factory in Illinois also brought a case to court in the late 1930s, eventually winning in 1939 after Radium Dial's attorney unsuccessfully attempted to appeal the case several times, including in front of the Supreme Court (McClellan McAndrew, 2018).

These court victories meant little after several women had already succumbed to their illnesses in the years prior, all in decidedly disturbing circumstances. It is likely that thousands of former employees died from radium poisoning in the following decades, but it is difficult to land on one true number of victims today (NJ Gov, 2016).

Exposure to Risk in the Field

The deadly conditions in these factories were certainly avoidable, but due to the neglect of the USRC, sufficient safety precautions seemed to be avoided entirely. Chemists employed at the plant were well aware of the potency and danger of radium, using lead screens, tongs, and masks whenever handling the substance. The U.S. Radium Company themselves had produced literature on the "injurious effects" of radium in years prior, distributing materials to members of the medical community but failing to look inward at their own perilous factory operations (Bellows, 2006). Workers would paint their nails, lips, and teeth with the substance for fun while on the job, unaware that this absentminded action would cause their bodies to deteriorate.

It is important to note that these employees were overwhelmingly young, working-class women who might otherwise be hard pressed to find a job, let alone a safe one, in the early 20th century. The delicate painting of the watch faces was seen as principally "women's work," yet despite the crucial contributions of these women to the USRC's lucrative operations, they were not given the same information as their male, scientist counterparts (Bellows, 2006). The radium girls were seen as expendable in the company's eyes, an attitude which would inform the unrepentant and at times downright sinister efforts of the USRC to cover up their tracks.

The "invisibilized" and fairly nebulous risks of radium poisoning also stood to undermine safety and justice efforts. Though the glow-in-the-dark sheen of the Undark paint was visible to employees, the destructive effects of the substance were not fully understood by workers. The sheer spread of radioactive materials dusted across every surface and person in the factory proved a terrifying but hidden threat. Though this intense radium exposure likely gave hundreds and even thousands of employees cancer and other grave illnesses in the years after, some illnesses were harder than others to pin down as a direct cause of the USRC's negligence (NJ Gov). As a result, many went on to suffer life-long health impacts with no compensation.

Corporate Interests Suppressing Justice and Safety

When the first few cases of severe radiation linked to the USRC cropped up in the early 1920s, the company decided to hire a Harvard physiology professor, Cecil Drinker, to visit the Orange plant and assess its working conditions in a report for the New Jersey Department of Labor (NJ Gov, 2016). Drinker made note of the factory's heavily contaminated surfaces, finding highly radioactive samples on the faces, hands, dresses, and even corsets of many of the workers. He also noted unusual blood samples from practically every employee. Despite these harsh assessments, the final report submitted to the NJDL stated that every girl was in "perfect condition," and the USRC failed to take any of Drinker's initial recommendations for improving working conditions into account (Bellows, 2006). It was not until 1925 that Drinker finally made the report's original contents public, with the USRC threatening legal action over its release.

In another instance, Grace Fryer, one of the five women who filed a suit against USRC in New Jersey, was asked to be examined by a specialist at Columbia University. The alleged specialist, Frederick Flynn, and another colleague present at the examination ultimately reached the conclusion that Fryer was in fine health (Bellows, 2006). As it turns out, Flynn was not a licensed or practicing doctor, but instead a toxicologist paid by the USRC, and his "colleague" happened to be a vice-president of the USRC. Broader campaigns by the USRC were employed to discredit the women suffering from radium poisoning, including collusion with local doctors and dentists, as well as the rumor that the true cause of the women's ailments was syphilis (NJ Gov, 2016).

Fryer's court case further illuminates the unscrupulous actions of the USRC. Court proceedings began in January of 1928, but by April, the judge decided to adjourn the case until September as many witnesses from the USRC would be "summering in Europe" and unable to give their testimonies until September (Bellows, 2006). There was consequent outrage expressed in the press and by the general public over this decision, and by early June, an out-of-court settlement was reached reluctantly, mediated by a USRC stockholder. The company agreed to pay $10,000 to each woman, as well as pay all their medical bills and legal fees. In addition, the victims were to receive $600 in annuity for the rest of their lives, payments which were scarcely collected given their rapidly deteriorating states of health (NJ Gov, 2016).

All these tactics were made possible by the immense wealth of the company and its close ties to the U.S. military. The USRC was able to gain the support of doctors, scientists, and legal professionals to avoid culpability and subvert the interests and wellbeing of its own employees. In response to the incident, Congress passed a bill in 1949 making occupational diseases compensable, and even extended the period in which workers could file a claim against their employer (Bellows, 2006).

Relevance to Advanced Nuclear Energy

We chose this case for its greater focus on labor, particularly around the targeting of certain populations in "risky" fields. The radiation component of this case was also an obvious analog to nuclear, particularly when thinking about the idea of an "invisibilized risk" that is harder to legally pin down responsibility (and thus compensation) for. The case revealed how marginalized communities may be undermined by corporate powers when trying to gain compensation for potential health and safety risks, particularly when they are as nebulous as radiation. The case also cemented themes of the asymmetrical distribution of information on risks among workers and communities, particularly when these individuals are marginalized already. Advanced nuclear may sustain this idea of "disposable" populations and land with its reliance on extractive uranium mining and contentious waste siting. Though framed as a potential labor force booster, particularly for rural and more economically-depressed regions, advanced nuclear may concentrate risks in marginalized communities by extension. Advanced nuclear may also undermine community efforts to receive justice in the face of potential radiation exposure if corporate legal tactics for avoiding responsibility fall along similar lines as they did here.

Key Sources

Balkansky, A. (2019, March 19). Radium girls: Living dead women. Headlines & Heroes, The Library of Congress.

Bellows, A. (2006). Undark and the radium girls. Damn Interesting.

Dabbs, Z. (2018, January 4). The radium girls at the National Archives. The Text Message.

Grady, D. (1998, October 6). A glow in the dark, and a lesson in scientific peril. The New York Times.

McClellan McAndrew, T. (2018, January 30). Illinois issues: The radium girls: An Illinois tragedy. Illinois Public Media.

New Jersey Government. (2016). Radium girls: The story of US Radium's superfund site.

References

Balkansky, A. (2019, March 19). Radium girls: Living dead women. Headlines & Heroes, The Library of Congress.

Bellows, A. (2006). Undark and the radium girls. Damn Interesting.

Dabbs, Z. (2018, January 4). The radium girls at the National Archives. The Text Message.

Fry, S. A. (1998). Studies of U.S. radium dial workers: An epidemiological classic. Radiation Research, 150(5), S21-S29.

Grady, D. (1998, October 6). A glow in the dark, and a lesson in scientific peril. The New York Times.

Martinez, N. E., Jokisch, D. W., Dauer, L. T., Eckerman, K. F., Goans, R. E., Brockman, J. D., Tolmachev, S. Y., Avtandilashvili, M., Mumma, M. T., Boice, J. D., & Leggett, R. W. (2022). Radium dial workers: Back to the future. International Journal of Radiation Biology, 98(4), 750-768.

McClellan McAndrew, T. (2018, January 30). Illinois issues: The radium girls: An Illinois tragedy. Illinois Public Media.

NJ Gov. (2016). Radium girls: The story of US Radium's superfund site.

Richter, E. (2018). The radium dial painters: Workers' rights, scientific testing, and the fight for humane treatment. Departmental Honors Projects, 74.

Photo: "The Radium Girls", painting the hands and spheres of watches and compasses. Esther Mateo / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons