Prompt Cast
The Radium Girls: Fighting for Justice and Workplace Safety
TLDR The Radium Girls fought against workplace abuse and won lawsuits against their employers for their exposure to radium, despite the obstacles they faced as women. Their efforts led to significant changes in workers' rights and workplace safety, but also resulted in the spread of radioactive waste.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
This episode begins with a PSA about the importance of getting vaccinated and taking COVID-19 seriously, followed by a discussion about the mistreatment of women in the workplace throughout history.
04:46
The Radium Girls were able to establish successful lawsuits against employers for workplace abuse and dereliction of duty, despite the obstacles they faced as women and the lack of workplace safety laws.
09:38
Radium was initially thought to have health benefits and was used in various treatments, but there were also concerns about its dangers; however, companies that made money off of radium heavily promoted its positive qualities, leading to a disconnect between academic scholarship and popular understanding of the element.
14:25
Radium was an incredibly expensive and rare material in the 1920s, and the radium girls were attracted to their jobs because they could go out and attract attention with their glowing hair and clothes.
19:07
The radium girls were not only exposed to radium dust in their working conditions, but they were also ingesting radium orally through a technique called lip pointing, where they would dip the paintbrush in radium and put it in their mouths to make a finer point, unknowingly inviting cancer into their bodies.
23:32
The corporate culture at US Radium in Orange, New Jersey was cavalier about the dangers of radium, even though the men working with it wore protective gear, and when Molly Magia fell ill from radium poisoning, her doctors blamed it on syphilis to deflect blame from the company.
28:11
US Radium buried an independent investigation that found a connection between radium exposure and the illnesses and deaths of the dial painters, and even altered the report to say that the women were in perfect condition.
33:14
Dr. Harrison Martland launched a secret investigation into the radium exposure of the dial painters after a chemist at USRC died, and with the help of Dr. Saban A. Von Sakaki, they discovered that everyone who worked at the plant, including Von Sakaki himself, was radioactive.
38:19
The Radium Girls fought for awareness of the dangers of radium and were successful in forcing companies to settle and eventually drive radium paint out of use.
43:00
The US radium lawsuit led to significant changes in workers' rights and workplace safety, including the formation of OSHA and the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, but also resulted in the spread of radioactive waste in Ottawa, Illinois.
Categories:
Society & Culture
