Radia Girls Research Paper

Radium Girls

In 1922, a clock company relocated from Chicago to Illinois, amidst allegations that some of the raw materials used during production were the cause of some of their employees’ illnesses. From the big city to the small town of Ottawa the mysterious illnesses followed. Radium Dial, a Westclox brand, opened up a factory in the local high school and employed young women to paint the faces of the clocks with radium. Presently, the dangers of radiation exposure are common place knowledge of the general public, but in the early 1900’s, “radium was considered the new wonder drug” (Langer, 1987). The unsuspecting ladies, many only girls, used their lips to work the paint brush bristles into a fine point to create neat numbers on the clocks: ingesting radium daily. Many of the girls would use some of the remaining radium to decorate

Radium attacked the skeletal system of the workers because it is an analog of calcium. The calcium in the bones of the workers was essentially replaced with radium, which is highly unstable and radioactive. It emits ionizing alpha particle, and gamma rays radiation which causes damage to the human body. This led to the “honeycombing and cancer (Langer, 1987). The evidence of the damage was apparent when they felled to heal from bone trauma and damage. Without true calcium, the bones could not repair normally. This resulted in the painful death of many of the workers and countless side effects to them and their offspring. All of which could have been avoided if Radium Dial had employed a few safety measures to protect their workers instead of their profits. Despite the suffering of the Radium Girls and their loved ones, many of the safety standards for handling radioactive materials are in direct response to the research conducted on the former workers and their remains. They have been immortalized for their