On the morning of 15 October 1927, a dim, autumn day, a group of men foregathered at the Rosedale cemetery in New Jersey and picked their way through the headstones to the grave of one Amelia - ‘Mollie’ - Maggia. Together, there is a recorded total of over forty clock factory workers who died from probable radium poisoning.Įxcerpt from Kate Moore's book, THE RADIUM GIRLS She was the first of the five 'Radium Girls' who banded together to sue US Radium. The radioactive material eventually built up in the bodies of the women and nearly all died of radiation poisoning. Grace and a number of the women she worked with became the first recorded American industrial poisoning incidents on modern safety records.
To keep their paintbrushes well pointed, they would put the brush tip in their mouths. These dials were painted with radioactive paint which the all-female painting staff hand painted. Grace Fryer worked in a factory that made the first watches with illuminated dials. Radium poisoning sometimes affected other areas of the body as well Unidentified man suffering from radium poisoning Donohue shows how girls often licked the brushes used to paint radium on the dials.this practice would make the brush tips more pointed and therefore their aim would be more accurate Side view photo of Grace Fryer (post mortem, above)įrom her hospital bed, Mrs. The post Victorian Death Photos Turn Back The Clock On Historical Tragedy With “Radium Girls” appeared first on above: Grace Fryer before and after radium poisoning (post mortem) Listen to the haunting Radium Girls below:
Fate had other plans, however, and once they pair started working together, they ended up zeroing in on a “haunted, synthy, post-punk electronic” sound. The single was mixed and mastered by Kevin Butler with Test Tube Audio in Austin, Texas. The band, compared to Chvrches, fellow Texans S U R V I V E, and Minuit Machine, calls their sound “Indielectronic Post-Punk.” The duo have collaborated on many different creative projects in the past, with designs on creating a metal album. Radium Girls follows up their debut EP The Basement Tapes. The intense dirge with dreamy female vocals narrates their demise, a Greek chorus of sorts lamenting the victims’ ultimate sacrifice to unfettered capitalist greed. These tragic stories inspired mysterious Houston, Texas duo, Victorian Death Photos, to write Radium Girls. “Radium Girl” Catherine Wolfe Donohue faints upon learning her fate, 1938 As a result, these artists ingested deadly amounts of radium. The poisoning resulted in rotting teeth, bone deterioration (particularly in the jaw) to the extent where bones had to be removed from their faces, stillborn babies, and gruesome deaths from various forms of cancer. Among the items created with radium-infused, glow-in-the-dark paint were watch dials.Īfter being told the paint was harmless, the women factory workers who painted these tiny watch dials repeatedly licked the extremely fine brushes to keep the bristles at a point for the delicate work. Marketed as a miracle beauty product and a dazzling novelty, the radioactive substance found great popularity…and even greater profit, at the cost of millions of lives and severe health risks for radium’s devotees. During the early twentieth century, radium was all the craze.
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