Misplaced Pages

#21978

46-532: The company is notable for being involved in the radium poisoning of the Radium Girls . The workers in the factories were told that the radium paint was harmless. Radium's negative health effects were well-known at the time, however it was thought that small amounts of radium were not dangerous and even a cure for lack of energy. The workers in the factories consumed deadly amounts of radium due to being told by management to "point" their brushes on their lips for

92-589: A few blocks away from the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois shortly after closing down the Radium Dial Company. Luminous Processes Inc. continued producing fluorescent watch dials powered by radium radioactivity until 1978. Radium Girls The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials – watch dials and hands with self-luminous paint. The incidents occurred at three factories in

138-531: A fine tip. The young workers also used the radium paints to adorn their fingernails, lips and teeth to make them glow. This led to significant health problems and deaths among the company's workforce. The workers eventually sued Radium Dial Company and received financial compensation for their health problems, though the Radium Dial Company continuously appealed so this process took years and many workers had already died of their injuries. This litigation led to significant reforms in workplace safety and eventually led to

184-426: A former high school building at 1022 Columbus Street in Ottawa, Illinois where it remained until the mid-1930s. At the highest point in production (around 1925), the Radium Dial Company employed around 1,000 young women who turned out around 4,300 dials each day. The company was headed by Joseph A. Kelly Sr. at the time of its dissolution during the trial. Kelly opened up a new corporation called Luminous Processes Inc.

230-402: A greenish glow. Phosphors containing copper -doped zinc sulfide (ZnS:Cu) yield blue-green light; copper and manganese -doped zinc sulfide ( ZnS:Cu,Mn ), yielding yellow-orange light are also used. Radium-based luminescent paint is no longer used due to the radiation hazard posed to persons manufacturing the dials. These phosphors are not suitable for use in layers thicker than 25 mg/cm , as

276-417: A number of similar deaths had occurred by 1925, including USRC's chief chemist, Dr. Edwin E. Leman and several female workers. The similar circumstances of their deaths prompted investigations by Dr. Harrison Martland, county physician of Newark . An estimated 4,000 workers were hired by corporations in the U.S. and Canada to paint watch faces with radium. At USRC, each of the painters mixed her own paint in

322-410: A phosphor. Since radioactivity was discovered around the beginning of the 20th century, the main application of radioluminescence has been in radioluminescent paint , used on watch and compass dials, gunsights , aircraft flight instrument faces, and other instruments, allowing them to be seen in darkness. Radioluminescent paint consists of a mixture of a chemical containing a radioisotope with

368-442: A radioluminescent chemical ( phosphor ). The continuous radioactive decay of the isotope's atoms releases radiation particles which strike the molecules of the phosphor, causing them to emit light. The constant bombardment by radioactive particles causes the chemical breakdown of many types of phosphor, so radioluminescent paints lose some of their luminosity during their working life. Radioluminescent materials may also be used in

414-460: A result of the use of radium-containing medical products, and other groups of people who had been exposed to radium. Radioluminescence Radioluminescence is the phenomenon by which light is produced in a material by bombardment with ionizing radiation such as alpha particles , beta particles , or gamma rays . Radioluminescence is used as a low level light source for night illumination of instruments or signage. Radioluminescent paint

460-538: A small crucible , and then used camel hair brushes to apply the glowing paint onto dials. The rate of pay was about a penny and a half per dial (equivalent to $ 0.357 in 2023 ), earning the girls $ 3.75 (equivalent to $ 89.18 in 2023 ) for painting 250 dials per shift. The brushes would lose shape after a few strokes, so the USRC supervisors encouraged their workers to point the brushes with their lips ("lip, dip, paint"), or use their tongues to keep them sharp. Because

506-507: Is a low-energy beta-emitter , which, unlike alpha emitters like radium, does not degrade the phosphor lattice, so the luminosity of the material will not degrade so quickly. It also does not emit the penetrating gamma rays which radium does. The half-life of Pm is only 2.62 years, so in a decade the radioactivity of a promethium dial will decline to only 1/16 of its original value, making it safer to dispose of, compared to radium with its half life of 1600 years. This short half-life meant that

SECTION 10

#1732797199022

552-433: Is its decay product, the radioactive gas radon , which constitutes a significant risk even at extremely low concentrations when inhaled. Radium's long half-life of 1600 years means that surfaces coated with radium paint, such as watch faces and hands, remain a health hazard long after their useful life is over. There are still millions of luminous radium clock, watch, and compass faces and aircraft instrument dials owned by

598-405: Is more likely to cause cancer of the bone as the shorter half-life of radon-220 compared to radon-222 causes the daughter nuclides of radium-228 to deliver a greater dose of alpha radiation to the bones. It also considers the induction of several forms of cancer caused by internal exposure to radium and its daughter nuclides. The book used data from radium dial painters, people who were exposed as

644-424: Is occasionally used for clock hands and instrument dials, enabling them to be read in the dark. Radioluminescence is also sometimes seen around high-power radiation sources, such as nuclear reactors and radioisotopes . Radioluminescence occurs when an incoming particle of ionizing radiation collides with an atom or molecule, exciting an orbital electron to a higher energy level. The particle usually comes from

690-402: Is used on wristwatch faces, gun sights , and emergency exit signs . The tritium gas is contained in a small glass tube, coated with a phosphor on the inside. Beta particles emitted by the tritium strike the phosphor coating and cause it to fluoresce , emitting light, usually yellow-green. Tritium is used because it is believed to pose a negligible threat to human health, in contrast to

736-430: The radioactive decay of an atom of a radioisotope , an isotope of an element which is radioactive. The electron then returns to its ground energy level by emitting the extra energy as a photon of light. A chemical that releases light of a particular color when struck by ionizing radiation is called a phosphor . Radioluminescent light sources usually consist of a radioactive substance mixed with, or in proximity to,

782-673: The United States: one in Orange, New Jersey , beginning around 1917; one in Ottawa, Illinois , beginning in the early 1920s; and one in Waterbury, Connecticut , also in the 1920s. After being told that the paint was harmless, the women in each facility ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine tip; some also painted their fingernails, faces, and teeth with

828-404: The air and is diluted to safe concentrations. Tritium has a half-life of 12.32 years, so the brightness of a tritium light source will decline to half its initial value in that time. Infrared radiofluorescence (sometimes spelt radio-fluorescence) is a dating technique involving the infrared (~ 880 nm) luminescence signal of orthoclase from exposure to ionizing radiation . It can reveal

874-498: The camel hair brushes, management introduced glass pens with a fine point; however, the workers found that the pens slowed their productivity (they were paid by the piece), and they reverted to using brushes. When word of the New Jersey women and their suits appeared in local newspapers, the women were told that the radium was safe and that employees in New Jersey were showing signs of viral infections. Assured by their employers that

920-555: The case, industrial safety standards were demonstrably enhanced for many decades. The Radium Girls' case was settled in the autumn of 1928, before the trial was deliberated by the jury, and the settlement for each of the Radium Girls was $ 10,000 (equivalent to $ 177,000 in 2023 ) and a $ 600 per year annuity (equivalent to $ 10,600 in 2023 ) paid $ 12 per week (equivalent to $ 200 in 2023 ) for all of their lives, and all medical and legal expenses incurred would also be paid by

966-454: The center was providing medical examinations for living dial painters. The project also focused on the collection of information and, in some cases, tissue samples from the radium dial painters. When the project ended in 1993, detailed information of 2,403 cases had been collected. This led to a book on the effects of radium on humans. The book suggests that radium-228 exposure is more harmful to health than exposure to radium-226. Radium-228

SECTION 20

#1732797199022

1012-454: The company against employee suits. In the spring of 1938, the IIC ruled in favor of the women. The attorney representing the interests of Radium Dial appealed hoping to get the verdict overturned, and again the commission judge, George B. Marvel, found for the women. Radium Dial appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and on October 23, 1939, the court decided not to hear the appeal, and the lower ruling

1058-481: The company. The lawsuit and resulting publicity was a factor in the establishment of occupational disease labor law . Radium dial painters were instructed in proper safety precautions and provided with protective gear; in particular, they no longer shaped paint brushes by lip and avoided ingesting or breathing the paint. Radium paint was still used in dials as late as the 1970s. The last factory manufacturing radium paint shut down in 1978. Robley D. Evans made

1104-407: The construction of an optoelectric nuclear battery , a type of radioisotope generator in which nuclear energy is converted into light. The first use of radioluminescence was in luminous paint containing radium , a natural radioisotope . Beginning in 1908, luminous paint containing a mixture of radium and copper - doped zinc sulfide was used to paint watch faces and instrument dials, giving

1150-545: The dials, using the same "lip, dip, paint" approach as the women in New Jersey and by another unaffiliated plant in Waterbury, Connecticut, that supplied the Waterbury Clock Company . Following the termination of President Joseph Kelly from the company, Kelly established a competing firm in the town named Luminous Process Company, which also employed women in the same fashion and in the same conditions as

1196-626: The establishment of OSHA decades later. The Radium Dial Company was started in 1917 and was in full production of painted dials by 1918. The company was a division of the Standard Chemical Company based in the Marshall Field Annex building in Chicago . In 1920 the company relocated to Peru, Illinois to closer proximity to the clock manufacturer and major customer, Westclox . By 1922 the company had moved to

1242-474: The examinations was a ruse, part of a campaign of disinformation started by the defense contractor. USRC and other watch-dial companies rejected claims that the affected workers were suffering from exposure to radium. For some time, doctors, dentists, and researchers complied with requests from the companies not to release their data. In 1923, the first dial painter died, and before her death, her jaw fell away from her skull. By 1924, 50 women who had worked at

1288-538: The failure of tooth extractions to heal were some of these conditions. Many of the women developed anemia , bone fractures , and necrosis of the jaw, a condition now known as radium jaw . The women also experienced suppression of menstruation and sterility . It is thought that the X-ray machines used by these medical investigators may have contributed to some of the sickened workers' ill-health by subjecting them to additional radiation. It turned out at least one of

1334-505: The first measurements of exhaled radon and radium excretion from a former dial painter in 1933. At MIT he gathered dependable body content measurements from 27 dial painters. This information was used in 1941 by the National Bureau of Standards to establish a tolerance level for radium at 0.1 μ Ci (3.7 k Bq ). The Center for Human Radiobiology was established at Argonne National Laboratory in 1968. The primary purpose of

1380-482: The glowing substance. The women were instructed to point their brushes in this way because using rags or a water rinse caused them to use more time and material, as the paint was made from powdered radium, zinc sulfide (a phosphor ), gum arabic , and water. Five of the women in New Jersey challenged their employer in a case over the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers under New Jersey's occupational injuries law, which at

1426-607: The jaw, but the circumstances of his death helped the Radium Girls in court. The Radium Dial Company was established in Ottawa, Illinois, in 1922. Like the United States Radium Corporation, the purpose of the studio in Ottawa was to paint dials for clocks, their largest client being Westclox Corporation in Peru, Illinois . Dials painted in Ottawa appeared on Westclox's popular Big Ben, Baby Ben, and travel clocks; and Radium Dial hired young women to paint

Radium Dial Company - Misplaced Pages Continue

1472-572: The luminosity of promethium dials also dropped by half every 2.62 years, giving them a short useful life, which led to promethium's replacement by tritium. Promethium-based paint was used to illuminate Apollo Lunar Module electrical switch tips and painted on control panels of the Lunar Roving Vehicle . The latest generation of radioluminescent materials is based on tritium , a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with half-life of 12.32 years that emits very low-energy beta radiation. It

1518-496: The mid-1930s before a suit was brought before the Illinois Industrial Commission (IIC). In 1937, five women found attorney Leonard Grossman who would represent them in front of the commission, but by then, Radium Dial had closed and moved to New York. The IIC did retain a $ 10,000 deposit left by Radium Dial when it disclosed to the IIC that they could not find any insurance to cover the cost of indemnifying

1564-406: The other firms. Employees at Radium Dial began showing signs of radium poisoning in 1926–1927 and were unaware of the hearings and trials in New Jersey. Furthermore, Radium Dial leadership authorized physicals and other tests designed to determine the toxicity of radium paint to its employees, but the company did not make the records or results available to employees. In an attempt to end the use of

1610-593: The plant were ill, and a dozen had died. At the urging of the companies, medical professionals attributed worker deaths to other causes. Syphilis , a notorious sexually transmitted infection at the time, was often cited in attempts to smear the reputations of the women. The inventor of radium dial paint, Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky, died in November 1928, becoming the 16th known victim of poisoning by radium dial paint. He had gotten sick from radium in his hands, not

1656-399: The previous radioluminescent source, radium, which proved to be a significant radiological hazard. The low-energy 5.7 keV beta particles emitted by tritium cannot pass through the enclosing glass tube. Even if they could, they are not able to penetrate human skin. Tritium is only a health threat if ingested or inhaled. Since tritium is a gas, if a tritium tube breaks, the gas dissipates in

1702-474: The public. The case of the " Radium Girls ", workers in watch factories in the early 1920s who painted watch faces with radium paint and later contracted fatal cancer through ingesting radium when they pointed their brushes with their lips, increased public awareness of the hazards of radioluminescent materials, and radioactivity in general. In the second half of the 20th century, radium was progressively replaced with paint containing promethium -147. Promethium

1748-771: The radium was safe, they returned to work as usual. In Orange, New Jersey, the story of the abuse perpetrated against the workers is distinguished from most such cases by the fact that the ensuing litigation was covered widely by the media. Plant worker Grace Fryer decided to sue, but it took two years for her to find a lawyer willing to take on USRC. Even after the women found a lawyer, the litigation process moved slowly. At their first appearance in court in January 1928, two women were bedridden, and none of them could raise their arms to take an oath. Five factory workers dubbed "the radium girls"– Grace Fryer, Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub, and sisters Quinta McDonald and Albina Larice – joined

1794-402: The self-absorption of the light then becomes a problem. Zinc sulfide undergoes degradation of its crystal lattice structure, leading to gradual loss of brightness significantly faster than the depletion of radium. ZnS:Ag coated spinthariscope screens were used by Ernest Rutherford in his experiments discovering the atomic nucleus . Radium was used in luminous paint until the 1960s, when it

1840-433: The suit. The litigation and media sensation surrounding the case established legal precedents and triggered the enactment of regulations governing labor safety standards, including a baseline of "provable suffering". In Illinois, employees began asking for compensation for their medical and dental bills as early as 1927 but were refused by management. The demand for money by sick and dying former employees continued into

1886-723: The time had a two-year statute of limitations, but they settled out of court in 1928. Five women in Illinois who were employees of the Radium Dial Company (which was unaffiliated with the United States Radium Corporation) sued their employer under Illinois law, winning damages in 1938. From 1917 to 1926, United States Radium Corporation (USRC), originally called the Radium Luminous Material Corporation,

Radium Dial Company - Misplaced Pages Continue

1932-488: The true nature of the radium had been kept from them, the Radium Girls also painted their nails, teeth, and faces for fun with the deadly paint produced at the factory. Many of the workers became sick; over 30 died from exposure to radiation by 1927. Several are buried in Orange's Rosedale Cemetery . Dentists were among the first to see numerous problems among dial painters. Dental pain, loose teeth, lesions, and ulcers, and

1978-683: Was engaged in the extraction and purification of radium from carnotite ore to produce luminous paints , which were marketed under the brand name " Undark ". The ore was mined from the Paradox Valley in Colorado and other "Undark mines" in Utah . As a defense contractor , USRC was a major supplier of radioluminescent watches to the military. Their plant in Orange, New Jersey , employed as many as 300 workers, mainly women, to paint radium-lit watch faces and instruments, misleading them that it

2024-425: Was replaced with the other radioisotopes mentioned above due to health concerns. In addition to alpha and beta particles , radium emits penetrating gamma rays , which can pass through the metal and glass of a watch dial, and skin. A typical older radium wristwatch dial has a radioactivity of 3–10 kBq and could expose its wearer to an annual dose of 24 millisieverts if worn continuously. Another health hazard

2070-408: Was safe. USRC hired approximately 70 women to perform various tasks including handling radium, while the owners and the scientists familiar with the effects of radium carefully avoided any exposure to it themselves. Chemists at the plant used lead screens , tongs, and masks. USRC had distributed literature to the medical community describing the "injurious effects" of radium. Despite this knowledge,

2116-401: Was upheld. In the end, this case had been won eight times before Radium Dial was finally forced to pay. The Radium Girls' saga holds an important place in the history of both the field of health physics and the labor rights movement. The right of individual workers to sue for damages from corporations due to labor abuse was established as a result of the Radium Girls' case. In the wake of

#21978