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WonderHistory fact

In the 1910s and 1920s young American women known as the Radium Girls painted watch dials with glowing radium paint, shaping their brushes to a point with their lips as they were told. Many fell ill, and their legal fight helped establish that workers can sue employers for occupational disease.

New Jersey, 1920s

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The story behind the card

Radium paint made dials readable in the dark, and the work was well paid and thought glamorous; some women even painted their nails and teeth with it for a night out. Each lick left a little radium in the body, where it settled in the bones and caused anaemia, fractures and decay of the jaw. Their employers knew the danger and protected their own chemists while telling the women the paint was harmless. In 1927 five former workers of the United States Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey, led by Grace Fryer, sued while gravely ill, and settled in 1928. Their case and later ones in Illinois helped establish workers' right to sue for occupational disease and shaped the radiation safety rules used in the Manhattan Project.

Türkçe oku
“Radyum Kızları” diye anılan genç Amerikalı kadınlar, 1910'lar ve 1920'lerde saat kadranlarını karanlıkta parlayan radyum boyasıyla boyadı; kendilerine söylendiği gibi fırçanın ucunu dudaklarıyla sivriltiyorlardı. Birçoğu hastalandı. Açtıkları davalar, işçilerin meslek hastalıkları için işverenlerini dava edebilmesinin yolunu açtı.
New Jersey, 1920'ler

Radyum boyası kadranların karanlıkta okunmasını sağlıyordu. İş iyi para getiriyordu ve göz alıcı sayılıyordu; kimi kadınlar eğlenceye çıkarken tırnaklarını, hatta dişlerini bu boyayla boyuyordu. Fırçayı her dudaklarına götürüşlerinde vücutlarına biraz radyum giriyordu. Radyum kemiklere yerleşip kansızlığa, kemik kırıklarına ve çene kemiğinin çürümesine yol açtı. İşverenler tehlikeyi biliyordu: Kendi kimyagerlerini koruyor, kadınlara ise boyanın zararsız olduğunu söylüyorlardı. 1927'de New Jersey'nin Orange kentindeki United States Radium Corporation'ın beş eski çalışanı, Grace Fryer önderliğinde, ağır hastayken dava açtı ve 1928'de uzlaşmaya varıldı. Bu dava ve ardından Illinois'de açılanlar, işçilerin meslek hastalığı için dava açma hakkının yerleşmesine yardım etti; ortaya çıkan radyasyon güvenliği kuralları Manhattan Projesi'nde de kullanıldı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Radium Girls
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