 Discovered in 1898

 Marie Curie discovered it

 When discovered everyone wanted to use it
 Said to cure fever, constipation, other common
illnesses
 Was also said to make women more beautiful
Dial painting was considered a “high
class” job
It was a good paying job
Painted luminous dials
Examples: clocks, compasses, other
military instruments
 The women used radium paint to paint the dials
 They stuck the brush between their lips to the paint
then painted the dials
 Process called lip-pointing
 Average amount of dials painted was 200 dials a day
 The radium made the girls glow
 Some would paint the radium on their teeth to make
them glow for their dates
 By 1927 50 women had died from radium paint
poisoning
 First woman to die was Frances Splettstocher
 One of the biggest side effects was the decaying
 There were also reports of infections never
healing just
getting worse
 Scientists learned a lot from these women
 They learned from these women the dangers of
radium poisoning
 They were “essentially test subjects” to
aftermath of radium exposure
 Helped with the knowledge what would happen
after the atomic bomb dropping
 These women brought justice to the female race
 Radium workers were able to get medical settlements
 Waterbury Clock Company issued over $90,000 in
settlements
Come see Norwayne’s production of Radium Girls:

Thursday November 9 @ 7:30 p.m.

Saturday November 11 @ 7:30 p.m.
Sunday November 12 @ 2 p.m.

The other play is Goldilocks on Trial