Dial Painters

I just finished reading two books about some workers who were never told of the hazards in their workplace with the resulting consequence of that neglect being a horrible death for many of the workers. These two books describe some of the stories of the radium dial painters. The high demand for luminescent dials began with our troops in World War I. Unable to tell time in the darkness of the deep damp European trenches, soldiers had to light a match or shine a light in the night to see the dials of their watches. A light in the dark was an open invitation to a sharpshooting sniper and created a very hazardous condition.

The first book, 'Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910-1935' by Dr. Claudia Clark, is a product of her doctoral dissertation; consequently it has an extensive bibliography. I spent more time reading through her notes and accessing some of her citations than I did reading the book. This book addresses the ethical/moral questions pertaining to those professionals who knew of the hazards posed to these dial painters and yet did nothing and also looks at the helplessness of young women as they fought a losing battle against the insidious sickness and debilitating effects of the radiation poisoning.

I found the second book, written by Dr. Ross Mullner, 'Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy', to be a much more enjoyable read, but lacking in the detail of the first. I'm glad that I read both of them and would recommend the same to my friends. This second book lists 112 dial painters known to have died as the result of ingesting the radium zinc sulfide paint mixture.

Beginning in 1917, young women in Orange, New Jersey, were hired by US Radium Company to paint a glow-in-the-dark substance, called Undark, on the numbers of watch dials. This was a very tedious process of painting on very small numbers which required a pointed tip on the paint brush. For any of you who have ever done much detail painting, you can understand that it is difficult to maintain the fine tip on the brush as it tends to flare out. As a result of this flaring of the brush, these young women were instructed to tip the point of their brushes with their lips.

The paint the young ladies were using was a mixture of zinc sulfide and radium. Radium is a radioactive material which provided the radiation energy necessary to excite the luminescent crystals of the zinc sulfide, thereby providing the glow-in-the-dark characteristic. Unbeknownst to the young ladies, radium is a radioactive alpha emitter that has a tendency to react much like calcium when it enters the human body...and it has a half life of 1602 years. Consequently, as the dial painters, or Radium Girls, as they later became known, ingested the paint mixture, the Radium went straight to their bones and then began to destroy their bodies. They had been told by their supervisors that the paint was harmless.

A couple of other companies, Radium Dial Company and Radium Company of Colorado, were in the same business and the resulting casualties to their dial painters were similar to what US Radium had witnessed. All three of these companies knew of the hazards associated with radioactive material but decided to deny that knowledge to their workers. This was prior to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this was just 20 some years after the discovery of Radium by Marie Curie, and this was before anyone regulated workplace safety.

Radioactive materials were new to the public in the early 1900's. Radium was so new; it was being peddled as a cure all by quacks trying to make a fortune. One product, Radithor, which was manufactured from 1918 to 1928 by the Bailey Radium Laboratories, Inc., of East Orange, New Jersey, was advertised as an elixir for all pains. Dr. Bailey, who was responsible for this farce, was a college dropout who wasn't even a Doctor.

Eben Byers, the 1906 U.S. Amateur Golf Champion, began drnking Dr. Bailey's Radithor after an accident in 1927 that caused him to have a persistent pain in his left arm. Eventually, the radium ate completely through his jaw and also destroyed his brain. He died from radiation poisoning on March 31, 1932. He had to be buried in a lead-lined coffin because his body was so radioactive at death.

Other products containing radium also entered the marketplace back then, such as Vita Radium Suppositories ("Guaranteed to contain real refined Radium and to be perfectly harmless.") It was sold with this advertisement, "A man must be in a bad way indeed to sit back and be satisfied without the pleasures that are his birthright! . . . Try them and see what good results you get!" Women, on the other hand, were blessed with a Radium facial cream, Tho-Radia, which consisted of "0.5 grams thorium chloride and 0.25 milligrams radium bromide per 100 grams of cream. It was advertised as a creation "by Dr Alfred Curie", who was not a member of Pierre and Marie Curie's family and who probably never existed." Interestingly, Thorium is also a slightly radioactive alpha emitter. ("Exposure to an aerosol of thorium can lead to increased risk of cancers of the lung, pancreas and blood, as lungs and other internal organs can be penetrated by alpha radiation. Exposure to thorium internally leads to increased risk of liver diseases.) And the kids got "Radium Chocolate manufactured by Burk & Braun, which was sold in Germany from 1931 to 1936." It was advertised for its rejuvenation power.

Regardless of the regulations, the inspections and the well meaning efforts of watchdog groups everywhere, no one really knows how many materials and chemicals with potential dangers face the totality of our workforce, even today. Although we continue to try to ascertain all potential workplace hazards, many hazards are just suspected and not yet proven. Science will probably never be able to accurately predict what specific effects that exposure to every known compound will have within a given person; the body's biological plumbing system is way too complex and varies from person to person. However we continue to learn as much as we can as we try to keep our workers as safe as possible. For the most part, we are at least attempting to protect our workforce from all known hazards, as cases of neglect appear to be decreasing in today's society.

I find myself amazed at times, as I continue my lifelong study of our nation's history, about the magnitude of differences in lifestyles years ago versus our life today. It wasn't until 1970 that the US established the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) to regulate safety in the workplace. It was in the late 1970's when a major movement by workers began that called for the 'Right to Know' about all hazards in the workplace. With all of the regulations and inspections that we are subjected to these days, it seems odd that most of these weren't even in effect just 40 years ago.

OK, who would have thought popcorn could have been so hazardous? I'll write something about popcorn, butter and diacetyl next time around. In the mean time, don't bury your head in that steaming bag of buttery popcorn.