Drinking The Cool Aid

Radium Girls // 193 // Part 2

• Megan and Hanna Hawkins • Season 1 • Episode 193

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The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning beginning in 1917, while they were painting watches with self-luminous paint.  This occurred at three factories in the United States: Orange, New Jersey, Ottawa, Illinois, and Waterbury Connecticut.  The women were assured that the paint was harmless, but that wasn't true, and they ingested deadly amounts of radium.

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Remember the cofounder of the Orange County factory, George Willis? Yep, he had gotten so sick that he had to have his right thumb amputated he had carried tubes of radium in his bare hands for years. He'd been driven out of the company at this point and was getting worse and worse. By September, he had to have his right thumb amputated due to it being riddled with cancer. He published an article about it, basically saying that not enough people exposed to radium for long periods of times daily for years to realize that the effects might not be so good afterall. His article was completley ignored tho because again, there was too much good surrounding it.   

Irene, cousins with Katherine Schaub, had already been suffering with problems in her feet, was now struggling with major problems in her mouth. This unfortanetly let to her having to quit her current job at the corset factory in May because her condition had gotten so bad. Which made it super difficult to keep up on her medical bills. Her dentist Dr. Barry and his partner Dr. James Davidson were doing their best to treat her, but much like Katherine Schaub, her condition only worsened the more teeth and bone they removed.  Even being across from the library, they couldn't find anything close enough to what she was experiencing. In November, Dr. Barry examined her again, only to find more diesease. Dr. James Davidson had a lot of experience with phosy jaw, so they became convinced that's what it was. They of course questioned her about working with phosphorus, but she said she didn't either. They chalked it up to that and treated her as so. In December, she went downhill, became super pale, anemic, and had to be admitted to the hospital. But NOW, she had heard about Mollie because thru the network of radium girl friendships, it had made its way to her. People gossiping said it was syphilis, but this didn't sound right to Irene because they had almost the exact same symptoms. So she told her doctor, like homie, im not the only one here, and Mollie had died only a few months prior. Buuuuuuut, she also mentioned, there was ANOTHER girl sick. Her name was Hazel Vincent. She had left USRC, but since then she had been diagnosed with anemia, Pyrorrhea, annnnd possibly phosy jaw because she had garlic smelling, black discharge coming from her mouth and nose. Irene discussed this all with her doctor at the hospital, Dr. Allen. He heard her out and decided this was all too coincidental, so it must be an occupational problem.  

On December 26, 1922, he reported to the Industrial Hygeine Division that Irene was a case of phosphorus poisioning, and he asked them to look into it further. Which they actually DID do, and only days later sent an inspector to the plant to investigate the allegations. He was escorted arond by a Vice president of the company, Harold Viedt.  The inspector said that he questioned Harold about the lip pointing method and, "he has warned the girls time and time again of this dangerous practice, but he could not get them to stop it" (Keep in mind GF only mention)


At the end of the inspection, a paint sample was taken, and sent to the deputy commisioner of the NJ Depeartment of Labor. An additional inspection took place by Lillian Erskine, who sent her findings off to the same person at the end of Janurary. She talked with somone higher up and she told the Deputy commisioner that, quote, "no reports of necrosed bones as a result of radium treatment exsist" and quote, " This case, Irene Rudolph, and the reported second case, Hazel Vincent, are probably accidental coincidence, resutling from abscessed teeth and incompetent dental surgery." 

Deputy commisioner was like, nah fuck you, and got it tested by a chemist, Dr. Martin Szamatoloski, who did not believe phosphorus was going to be in it, and very quickly concluded that radium was very seriously effecting their jaws. He wouldn't know this for sure yet because the tests would take awhile, but he warned that getting in on your skin or in your mouth could be dangerous. Buuuuuut there was so much positives about radium still, that he went unheard. April 6, 1923, His tests concluded and he once again said that he was pretty positive that radium was causing issues. And yes, the Department of Labor most definitely saw both this report AND the one from the original inspector and did aboslutely nothing about it. 

On July 15, 1923 at just 21 years old and only a day after being admitted into the hospital, Irene passed away. Her death certificate said her cause of death was related to work and most likely phosphorus poisioning.


Marguereite (FIND LAST NAME), In October 1923, she got a toothace. November 17th, she went to see Dr. Barry, who also saw Irene. He removed two teeth and noted that she worked at the radium plant. She had to go back several times that month, the whole time thinking about Irene. After dropping aton of weight due to not being able to eat, she walked out of work on Dec 24th, having no idea it would be her last day working there. That very same night, she went to dentist to get 2 teeth removed that had really been bothering her, as they were being removed, a piece of her jaw bone went with them. Now, she did say lip pointing had stopped temporarily in 1923, but only for a short period of time, and the comapanies reasoning was that the girls spit was spoiling the adhesive.

(Sister story)-


On Jan. 19th, the Smith sisters, Katherine Schaub, and Marguirete held a meeting at Dr. Barry's office. Everyone agreed that something was definitely going on at work and they discussed what they could even do in this situtaion. 

At this point, Dr. Barry decided to stop operating on any of the girls whatsoever. He could only sit back and observe now. Not saying he didn't try to bring in help, he did, but most dentists at this point had given up on the girls. The reasoning behind him making this decision wasn't easy for him, but he had realized that as soon as he attempted to operate, the situation would only flare up and get worse from there, rendering surgery as one of the worst options.

In Feb on 1924, after an angry mother left a letter demanding compensation for her daughter, Hazel, it was reported to the New York Headquarters, who were like, we are over the rumors at this point, we need to put them to rest, and so the USRC excecutives launched an investigation. 

In comes Cecil Drinker, someone we actually like. Cecil worked at the Harvard School of Public Health Facility along with members William Castle, and his wife, Katherine Drinker. 

While waiting for Cecil to come investigate the plant, Viedt made a visit to Dr. Barrys office. Him and others were outraged by what they described as Viedt's cold blooded attitude. 

May 7th and 8th in 1924, While investigating the plant, Cecil was met Marguirete, who no longer worked at the factory even, but she was there that day. He immediatley could tell she was very sick from across the room. He had noted that one of the chemists had serious lesions on his hands, but when questioned about it, he blatanly ignored any possibility of it being a future issue. 

During his investigation they also had a doctor in the studio who was doing examinations on of 25 selected employees. After the initial examination, they were brought to the dark room, stripped down, and examined to see how much they were actually glowing on their skin and not their clothes. Katherine Drinker was there for some of this and recalls being shocked by how much they truly were glowing. 

The Drinkers had noted, quote, "persisted on the skin" even after multiple washes.

Keep the Drinkers in mind because we will be coming back to them. 

While all of this is going down, an Orange Health officer saw a whole lot of people, doing a whole lot of nothing, so she wrote to the executive secretary of the Consumers League, Katherine Wiley. She was in charge of the NJ branch and thankfully a really smart and driven woman, who not only started conducting her own investigation but teamed up with Roach, and was able to get a list of the women who had been affected thus far. She met with Marguerite and after wrote quote, "After seeing one of the victims, I can never rest until I have seen something done whereby I am assured it will not happen again. She continued to interview the girls and learned about Hazel's mom trying to get compensation as they could not afford to keep up on her medical bills. Wiley talked to a local judge, trying to figure out what the heck they can do. She gets no answers she wants and in fact, finds out a bunch of crap things and the judge tells her quote, "When radium poisioning is made a compensable disease, if ever, it would not be retroactive; so that, as far as these girls were concerned, nothing could be done."

 So the law compensating workers for on the job injuries or hazards, was a decently new one, and it only covered 9 pretty specific things, which is already difficult to get around, but on top of that, there's a statue of limitations of only 5 freaking months. Meaning, whatever sickness or illness the girls wanted to report, woud have HAD to be within 5 months of it happening or showing symptoms, which is obviously a problem, especially in this case where symptoms show up incrediby random and when no one even believed this could be from work in the first place.

At this point, both Margureite C. and Hazels family had been looking for lawyers, but they couldn't find a single lawyer who would help without cash up front. As we know, the whole reason Hazel's family is seeking help is because they already can't afford to keep up on her health bills, so unfortanetly neither family had cash to pay up front. 

In may of 1924, Wiley took all her findings to the commisioner, Andrew McBride, of the Department of Labor. Was he concerned for the girls at all after seeing this?? Anyone anyone??? Nooo, of course, not, instead he was pissed that the Consumers League had gotten involved. 

In June, the Drinkers sent over their report, and Viedt brought that to Roach, except, he didn't give him the long report the Drinkers wrote, he simply gave him a medical result table that showed the girls blood was, quote, "practically normal", everyone agreed and we are basically back to square one. In reality, the Drinker's report had mentioned that the factory was saturated in dust, there was no protection being used, he saw workers as young as 15, he noted that the every inch of the workers glowed, quote, "even the corsets" and he was convinced that the constant exposure was bad and causing problems. They included their hypothesis on what they actually thought was happening inside the women's bodies. They described it as just like calcium, it had a similar chemical nature and acted similarly by being delivered directly into your bones. It was also stated that not one of the workers blood had come back entirely normal. They didn't all necassarily line up and match eachothers, but none of them were normal, not even the girls who had only been working a few weeks. They also specifically mentioned Marguerite and said she was in serious condition and it was the result of her working at the plant. 

Right after all this goes down, Dr. Blum contacts the company and basically tries to reach out to their more human side. He essentially says that he is not accusing anyone of anything (He sure was but he wasn't going to tell them that yet) and that Hazel's family was really struggling, if they could just help her out a bit, it'd mean a lot to the family. 

Can ya guess what happens next?? They didn't give a single fuck and refused to help. And by now, Hazel had literal pockets of fluid growing from her jaw. 

And speaking of Dr. Blum, his next patient was looking for a skilled dental surgeon, after dealing with serious jaw issues, and that patient is non other that Katherine Schaub. On one of her many visits, Dr. Blum was poking around where she was having the most problems and he broke a pocket of pus open in her mouth.

By the end of summer, Hazel got stuck in a 3 month hospital stay with her husband having to mortgage their home to the literal brink to be able to afford the bills. 

Dr. Blum noted about jaw necrosis to the American Dental Association, he only mentioned Hazel's case as hed been treating her almost a year, he called it, quote, "radium jaw" and that's how the condition eventually got named. And this is all because the assholes at the compay refused to pay for Hazel's bill and the lack of humanity basically sets Dr. Blum up on a war path. 

On Thanksgiving, Hazel was released from the hospital and allowed to go home. She was never the same after this tho and lived the rest of her life in agony. At only 25, she passed away on December 9th, 1924, with her mom and husband right by her side. At the funeral, they would'nt even allow anyone to see her because her body was in that rough of condition.

Wiley is now outraged. She wrote to Dr. Alice Hamiliton, who was the first female faculty member of the Harvard University, which we talked about earlier, where Cecil works. 

Hamilton didn't know a damn thing about the Drinker's report but Wiley planted that seed in her head. Hamiliton is an important character in this. She also reached out to Dr. Frederick Hoffman, who was a statistician at Prudential Insurance Company. She planted the seed in his head also and he jumped into action. So in December of 1924, he visited Marguerite. After seeing her he said she's walking the line of death and has really no future in healing. He then sent off a very strongly worded letter straight to the president of USRC. The summed up version of the letter is that he literally called them out and said if more cases are to arise, they WILL be paying compensation to those families eventually and their company is not going to be able to escape liability. 

Marguereite used this as fuel, asked her family to help, and was able to FINALLY find a lawyer who would take her case and on Feburuary 5, 1925, The first suit was filed against the USRC for $75,000 which would be about 1 million now. 

Her case made the local news, key word being local. 

Jumping to Ottowa, Radium Dial had heard about it, but the girls had not. So they cooked up a master plan, just in case things started getting out, these assholes, started yet another dial painting factory, that was a good distance away from the current one, in a town that most likely hadn't heard a single thing from anyone about any of the girls. They had both buildings running for 9 months, but realized the so to speak, rumors, hadnt reached the girls, they shut the second one down, and focused on the main company. 

They too eventually ended up randomly testing some of the girls. They took their results straight to corp. and never told any of the girls any of the results. And so, they went back to their jobs, lip, dip, paint.

In 1925, due to the cases in NJ, a government inspector came to check out the studio, his name was Swen Kjaer. He started in the office in Chicago and was ordered to keep it pretty quiet and casual, so the girls didn't start to get freaked. He interviewed some lab workers and noted some had open wounds on their hands and fingers.... Are you guys ready for this?? The lab workers literally are the only ones with safegaurds in place, they had lead screens and vacations so they could take a break from exposure, annnnnd they knew it was dangerous to handle without safeguards. From there, he headed to Ottowa, and was told by the superintendent that shed never heard of anything related to this work and any illnesses, in fact, she knew many who had benefited from it. Following that up with claiming that the girls have been told not to lip point, but are doing it anyway, theyre even provided with a cup of water to rinse the brush. And sure as shit, suddenly every girl had a cup of water. Later on tho, when shown a picture from a different date, the cups were all missing. He went on to interview 3 dentists in town, including one of the largest offices, who had treated many women from the factories. That dentist told Swen that there was quote, "no evidence of malignant disorder". The other offices agreed, and so only 3 short weeks after starting his investigation, it came to an end. His boss admitted this was because the expense to follow up was insane, even tho Swen had decided right away that radium was dangerous.  

So the first lawsuit is happening and Roeder is fighting back hard, along with company lawyers, he filed a motion to strike Marguriete's complaint, they were claiming that this case should have never even been filed with them, but instead the Workmens Compensation Bureau. The reasoning?? It wasn't one of those damn 9 compensable diseases. The judge probably just didn't want to be involved at this point, and decided to have a jury make the decision. 

During this, an Investigating Staticstican, Dr. Hoffman, sent letters to Roeder begging him to visit Marguerite or send someone else to, so they could see how bad she had gotten, but that would have been to much of a human thing to do and nobody ever went to visit her. He basically started his own mini investigation and sent questioneres to any people in the medical field that had seen any of the women, held interviews with the women affected, and concluded that they all did the same work, under the same conditions, and they were all having the same problems. Miss Wiley also sent letters questioning why she'd never seen the Drinkers report.

Miss Wiley and Dr. Hamiliton wrote to Roach to get him to request the Drinker's report from Roeder, but he replied that he had already seen it and cleared them. What they didn't know at the time was that the report that actually got sent in from the Drinkers, wasn't the real one, it had been fabricated to make it sound like everything was fine. So Hamiliton actually wrote to Miss Wiley, thinking things were FINALLY coming to an end, buuuuuuuuuuut Roeder still wouldn't give permission to the Drinkers to file the ACTUAL report and they couldn't do so until he said they could. 

Roeder invites Hoffman out to the plant a few times to try to win him over and Hoffman had noted that there wasn't enough signs warning against lip pointing, so on his last visit, suddenly there were more signs that said not to put the brushes in your mouth, and I guess that was enough for him, because he claimed to be impressed by it. (Roeder is literally just getting people off his back at this point by making tiny improvements or fixing small specific things, just enough to satisy whoever is questioning him.)

The Drinkers do find out about their report being falsified and contact Roeder about it, he comes up with yet another bullshit excuse and convinces Cecil that he will get the original report published asap, so the Drinkers back off and keep their word to not publish.. for now. 

By the end of April 1925, poor Margueriete is dealing with her head literally rotting away. She had infected facial bones which caused her to be really hard of hearing, almost all her teeth had fallen out, she had a fractured lower jaw on one side of her face, and when she was admitted to the hospital in Orange, her pulse was barley there and not normal and she was so anemic she weighed 90 flipping pounds. But now she was talking to Hoffman and also, Von Sochocky, who was previously an employee. About a week after being admitted, Hoffman read his paper with his opinion that quote, " The women were slowly poisioned as a result of introducing into the system minute quantites of radioactive substance" to the American Medical Association. Up until this point, it was widely believed it was safe due to only small amounts being used at a time, but Hoffman had realized it was the accumulation of all of it causing the issues, when you're around it every single day, or putting it in your mouth over and over your entire shift, yeah, its gonna start building up, and fast. He ended his paper with stating that the disease needed to be acknowledged under the workmens compensation laws. He continued to publish his paper and him and Von Sochocky continued to try to get word out about how dangerous working there was. 

Unfortunately, Marguerite's case was being drug out and there was a chance she was not going survive until her trial.    

But after a completley unexpected death, it left a make or break moment in the whole case. George L. Warren was riding on a trolley car when he suddenly collapsed and died right there, and his occupation was the county physician for Essex County, which included the area where multitudes of women were now getting sick. Obviously he has to be replaced and whoever takes that spot, could be the missing piece to solve all of this or the one who blows it all off. 

This roll was taken over by Dr. Harrison Martland, who went by Mart, or Marty and happened to be a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast. (Well guess what Marty, a whole ass mystery has been dropped right into your lap.

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