The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women

Katherine Schaub has moved from job to job, always leaving due to poor mental or physical health. Finally, in July 1924, she consults Dr. Blum. On one visit, she sees Hazel, whose jaw is swollen with fluid. Quinta MacDonald, too, is experiencing mysterious pain in her hip. An x-ray reveals “a white mottling throughout the bone” (123). She is sent home with a diagnosis of arthritis. Dr Blum makes an address to the American Dental Association, describing the radium jaw condition in medical literature for the first time. Quinta is treated with leg casts, which after many months seem to improve her condition. Hazel, meanwhile, passes away on December 9, 1924 at the age of 25.

Katherine Wiley, infuriated by the authorities’ inertia, pursues two leads—industrial toxicologist Dr. Alice Hamilton, whose departmental chair at Harvard is, by coincidence, Dr. Cecil Drinker. Hamilton was not of USRC’s internal report headed by Drinker, and agrees to participate in the investigation. Wiley also contacts statistician Dr. Frederick Hoffman, a specialist in industrial diseases. Hoffman visits Marguerite, and moved by her condition, writes Roeder warning him that “If the disease in question were compensable, I seriously doubt if your company would escape liability” (128) and “it will be made compensable in [the] course of time if further cases should arise is self-evident” (128).

As she approaches death, Marguerite finally finds a lawyer to take the case and together they file suit against USRC for $75,000 ($1 million).

In Ottawa, the Radium Dial Corporation hears about Marguerite’s case, though their employees seem not to. To avoid a slowdown in business such as the USRC experienced, they open another plant in a yet-smaller town where radium is less familiar. When no rumors arise after nine months, they shut down the plant. The company has some workers tested by an in-house doctor. Catherine Wolfe is not tested but has begun to develop pain in her ankle and hip. The company does not share the test results with the workers, who simply assume that they would be notified if something is wrong. The lip-pointing technique is still used, but the company begins searching, somewhat slowly, for an alternative.

Meanwhile, the girls continue to live a fun life, going to parties at the house of dial-painter Peg Looney’s beau, Chuck Hackensmith. The goings-on of Ottawa distract from the visit from a government inspector, Swen Kjaer, who is asked not to publicize his visit. Kjaer asks about lip-pointing and is told that the girls had been warned against it but continue it anyway. He finds that the girls are “healthy,” and finds nothing when he asked dentists about unusual mouth diseases.

The study lasts only 3 weeks before it is stopped because the main suspect was white phosphorus, which was not found in the factories. Yet, Kjaer’s boss and the head of the investigation Ethelbert Stewart later confess that the expense of the investigation was another reason for its brevity. Kjaer, however, has unofficially reached the conclusion that radium is dangerous. 

Arthur Roeder and USRC are reeling from the bad publicity following Marguerite Carlough’s lawsuit. At the Waterbury Clock factory’s studio, which USRC helped set up, lip-pointing has been banned and another dial-painter has died. Judges decide that the case will go before a jury, rather than become a workplace compensation suit as the USRC’s lawyers wanted.

Hoffman’s investigation in particular makes Roeder nervous. Hoffman has limited his investigation to interviewing doctors and the afflicted, rather than broadening to elsewhere in the country or even taking the research internationally. Von Sochocky even writes to Hoffman that “the disease in question is, without doubt, an occupational disease” (140).

Even USRC’s own internal investigation by the Drinkers ends with the conclusion that the illnesses must be due to radium. They even offer an explanation—since radium is structurally similar to calcium, a crucial component of bones, radium “fools” the body into absorbing it into the bones. It has been known for decades that radium is dangerous in large quantities, thus the protective measures taken in labs. Furthermore, the bloodwork from all USRC employees shows peculiarities. The report makes safety recommendations to USRC, some of which are implemented in anticipation that they would be less expensive than future lawsuits.

The report is not published in full because Drinker felt Roeder’s consent was needed to do so, but Roeder issued a distorted summary instead. When Dr. Alice Hamilton and Wiley learned of this, they “conspire” to ask Roach to request the report directly. When Roach revealed that he has already seen it and that it “put the company in the clear” (147), Hamilton and Wiley pressure the Drinkers to write to Roeder to urge full publication. They think the matter nearly resolved, but still Roeder refuses to publish it. 

On April 2, 1925, Roeder invites Hoffman to the factory in hopes of winning him over with new safety precautions and to convince him not to publish his paper. However, Hoffman has already submitted it for publication. Roach, meanwhile, requests a full copy of the report. Roeder replies “that, because of the Carlough suit” (140) the matter should be directed to his lawyer, Stryker.

Frustrated with the stalling, Drinker writes directly to Roach asking what USRC had said about his report. When Drinker finds out that Roeder lied, he confronts him at his office in New York, where they made a deal not to publish the report if Roeder gives the full report to Roach. The deal works in Roeder’s favor. Because the report is not published widely, the Carlough case will not have access to it.

With Drinker no longer on his side, Roeder hires another expert, Dr. Frederick Flinn. Flinn is an expert in industrial hygiene and assistant professor of physiology at the Institute of Public Health at Columbia University who been involved in similar cases. He examines some of the girls, including Edna Hussman who has worked at the factory intermittently since the war.

Meanwhile, Quinta Maggia is deteriorating, as Grace Fryer improves slightly. Marguerite Carlough is doing extremely poorly, and her care has accrued many thousands of dollars in medical bills. The bones in her head are “rotten” and she has lost most of her teeth.

Shortly afterwards, Hoffman reads his paper to the American Medical Association in the first study connecting radium to the sicknesses. He emphasizes that even “minute” amounts of radium could have a cumulative effect, especially once inside the body. Specialists have known since 1914 that radium can deposit in bone, but it was thought to be a positive effect, stimulating red blood cells. In reality, this effect at first gives the illusion of positive health but then has disastrous effects, causing anemia and necrosis among other ailments. Hoffman expresses that the illness should be included in workplace compensation.

Hoffman also reports that the factory in Orange is the only one he had been able to find that had led to these sicknesses. However, though he comments that it takes several years for the radium to do its harm, he fails to connect the dots that this is why no other cases have appeared elsewhere. When von Sochocky gives Hoffman the paint formula, Hoffman believes he had found the answer in the mesothorium (radium-228), which differed from the radium-226 that was used more commonly.

Still, the radium industry counters when Hoffman’s report is released, with the fact that Hoffman is not a physician harming his credibility.

After the Essex County physician suddenly dies, Dr. Harrison Martland filled the position as the man responsible for overseeing the health of the residents of the county. He becomes responsible for the dial-painters case and has already taken an interest in it.

On June 7, 1925, the chief chemist of USRC, Dr. Leman, dies of pernicious anemia. Suspecting radium poisoning, Martland conducts an autopsy with von Sochocky and USRC’s Howard Barker. They measure radiation in a human body for the first time. In a trade for its help, USRC extracts a promise from Martland to keep the conclusions secret.

Martland visits Marguerite and meets her sister, Sarah Maillefer. He tests Sarah after noticing large bruises on her body and finds her to be severely anemic. To test the sisters for radium, he invents two new tests, one measuring radon gas in the breath, and another measuring radium emanating from the skeleton with an electroscope.

Sarah dies shortly thereafter. That day, Martland goes to the media and expresses his suspicions about the radium poisoning, expressing his plan to examine her remains more closely.

The USRC immediately deny responsibility for Sarah’s death, and disavow claims that connect her death to that of Dr. Leman.

During the autopsy, Martland discovers that Sarah’s entire body contains radium. Radium emits three types of rays: alpha, beta, and gamma. Alpha is the easiest to block and even skin or a sheet of paper can block it, but it is the deadliest and most damaging. The radium she’d ingested was emitting these rays into her bones, causing severe damage to her bone marrow. Since radium has a half-life of 1,600 years, her body would continue to be radioactive for centuries to come. This discovery also reveals that the radiation poisoning is incurable.

Dr. Drinker and Dr. Flinn are both very interested in the results. Drinker’s submits his report for publication, calling Roeder’s bluff on a threat to sue if it were published, and it is finally published on August 1925.

Martland then tests Marguerite Carlough for radiation poisoning and finds a high degree of radium using the breath test. Katherine Schaub then signs up for testing, too. She, Grace Fryer, and Quinta all are in decent health, and yet are found to have significant levels of radium in their systems. For Katherine, however, this diagnosis brings hope along with being a death sentence. There is finally compelling evidence for a lawsuit.