The Radium Girls: The Glowing Paint That Ate Their Bones

In 1917, young women in New Jersey were hired to paint glowing numbers on watch dials. They were paid well, told the paint was safe, and taught to shape the brush with their lips. Within a few years their jaws were breaking apart. This is the true story of the Radium Girls: the company that hid what it knew, the five women who sued while they were dying, the fight that followed in Ottawa, Illinois, and the two myths almost every retelling gets wrong. Chapters 0:00 A glowing job 1:18 The miracle element 2:15 The shining girls 4:03 The first to die 5:16 The company knew 7:00 Five women doomed to die 9:19 Ottawa, again 11:31 Myth vs. record 13:07 What they left behind 14:43 Why it matters Sources Kate Moore, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women (2017) "Radium Girls", Wikipedia "Burning bones helped prove that women were poisoned by glowing paint", Popular Science "Glowing Graves and Lasting Change", Roadtrippers "Ottawa's Radium Girls at the forefront of worker protections", Northern Public Radio (WNIJ) "The Radium Girls: An Illinois Tragedy", Illinois Issues "The Radium Girls", National Library of Medicine (PMC5595405) Image credits "Marie and Pierre Curie (centre) in their laboratory, Paris Wellcome V0030700" by Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons "Tho-radia-2 (3421816380)" by Jon Evans from Toronto, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons "Revigorator" by Andrew Kuchling, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons "Essex County Courthouse (55184033189)" by ajay_suresh, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons "LaSalle Court House - panoramio" by Bohao Zhao, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons "Radiation Warning Symbol (44021370102)" by Nuclear Regulatory Commission from US, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons "Wristlet watch (AM 18115-1)" by Auckland Museum, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Other images: public domain via Wikimedia Commons; Pexels (free license) Maps: Natural Earth (public domain) Music "Dark Times" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Despair and Triumph" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Fig Leaf Rag - distressed" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Heartbreaking" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Iron Horse - Distressed" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Long Note Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Long Note Two" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Melodie Victoria" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Olde Timey" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Penumbra" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Sad Trio" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) "Sovereign" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Sound effects: Freesound.org (CC0) #history #radiumgirls #truestory Stillwater Files: the stories everybody thinks they know, checked against the actual records.