The Radium Girls — The Glow That Exposed a Lie
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This week on Bitchstory we talk about a very dark story from corporate history…
They were called ‘shining girls.’
Literally. Their skin, their hair, their dresses glowed when they walked home at night. It was 1917, and the United States Radium Corporation marketed their dial-painting jobs as glamorous, patriotic, and “perfect for girls with a delicate touch.”
What they didn’t say was that each delicate brushstroke delivered radium straight into their bodies.
The Lie They Were Told
Supervisors instructed the dial painters to “lip-point” — put the fine paintbrush between their lips to sharpen it — and reassured them the radium was perfectly safe. Meanwhile, the company kept every crumb of scientific evidence showing the opposite locked away.
The girls believed them. Why wouldn’t they? This was a good job in a bad economy. It paid well. It felt important. These were teenage girls and young women — some as young as 14 — trying to help their families stay afloat.
And then the teeth started falling out.
The Symptoms That Didn’t Add Up
At first it was small things: aches, fatigue, tooth pain. Then jaws crumbled. Bones deteriorated. Tumors grew. Doctors called it everything except what it was — until the truth became impossible to ignore.
Many of the women were dying from radiation poisoning.
The company claimed it was syphilis.
That’s how you know patriarchy is involved: when a woman is poisoned at work and a man in power says it must be her fault for being slutty.
The Women Who Fought Back
Grace Fryer. Edna Hussman. Katherine Schaub. Quinta McDonald. Albina Larice.
These names deserve to be remembered.
They sued. They fought. They testified. Some testified from their deathbeds. In an era when women couldn’t even serve on juries, these girls forced the legal system to see them — and forced an industrial giant to face consequences.
Their courage led to:
- the creation of modern worker protections
- the scientific understanding of radiation poisoning
- early foundations of what would eventually become OSHA
- the idea that employers are actually responsible for keeping workers alive (imagine!)
Why Their Story Still Matters
The Radium Girls weren’t just victims; they were whistleblowers, truth-tellers, and accidental activists. Their glow forced America to confront a truth it still struggles with:
Companies don’t protect workers unless they’re forced to.
Their story is a cautionary tale… and a call to stay loud, especially when someone with power says, “Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe.”
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