Their bosses said the paint wouldn't hurt them. Precision was key, so the girls were taught to create a fine point of the paintbrush bristles with their lips. Radium Dial hired women, girls mostly - some as young as 11 and 13 according to Moore's book - to paint the watch dials.
They became top sellers and production ramped up. In the 1920s, watch advertisements touted the wonderful radium dials that let owners tell time in the dark. Although dial painters in other states sought retribution for their fatal illnesses, those in Ottawa were the only ones "to win state sanctioned compensation for radium poisoning," wrote Claudia Clark in Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910-1935. Illinois' law led to the creation of the Illinois Industrial Commission in 1917, and it was this body that sided with one of Ottawa's most well-known dial painters in 1938. The final state to adopt it was Mississippi in 1948," says Russell Lewis, executive vice president and chief historian of the Chicago History Museum. "Illinois was one of the earliest adopters of workers compensation law in 1911. Because of Illinois' progressive workers' compensation laws, some of the Radium Dial workers received financial awards. Some of the Ottawa painters, despite their long, agonizing illnesses with crippling sarcomas, crumbling jawbones, crushed spines, amputated limbs and other maladies, were among the luckier ones. Besides the Ottawa plant, the women had worked at radium companies in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. There were likely thousands of dial painters who died from radium poisoning, although there's no definite number, according to Kate Moore, author of the 2017 book, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women. Luke's Hospital," the AugRockford Register-Republic reported. "The real source of her trouble wasn't found until she was examined at Presbyterian-St. Workman first experienced pain in 1936, but doctors told her it was arthritis. The 54-year-old Park Ridge, Illinois resident had worked in the 1920s at the Ottawa, Illinois Radium Dial Company, which hired women to paint watch and clock dials with radium-laced, glow-in-the-dark paint. On August 25, 1959, Beatrice Workman died of radium poisoning. She was among the last of her kind, but longevity in this club was a mixed blessing. All rights reserved.Part 1: Radium poisoning took the lives of perhaps thousands of female factory workers, many in Ottawa, Illinois, in the last century. This paper indicates a health risk, particular to collectors, but with knowledge and appropriate precautions the potential risks can be reduced.Ĭopyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. The risk from old watches containing radium appears to have been largely forgotten today.
Estimates of the activity of (226)Ra in the watches ranged from 0.063 to 1.063 μCi (2.31 to 39.31 kBq) for pocket watches and from 0.013 to 0.875 μCi (0.46 to 32.38 kBq) for wrist watches. Over 6 weeks highs of the order of 2000 Bq m(-3) were routinely recorded when the heating/ventilation system in the room was operating at reduced rates, peaking at over 3000 Bq m(-3) on several occasions. Radon concentration average was 259☙ Bq m(-3) over 16 h, compared to background average over 24h of 1.02 Bq m(-3). All watches were placed in a room with a RAD7 real-time radon detector. Radium ((226)Ra) decays to the radioactive gas radon ((222)Rn), and atmospheric radon concentration measurements taken around a pocket watch in a small sealed glass sphere recorded 18,728 B qm(-3).
RADIUM DIAL WATCH COMPANY SKIN
The maximum skin dose from a wristwatch was 14 mSv, with 4.2 mSv effective dose in vest pocket. This assumes exposure from the back of the watch which is generally around 60-67% of that from the front. For this condition we estimated maximum skin dose for our pocket watches as 16 mSv per year, with effective doses of 5.1 mSv and 1.169 mSv when worn in vest and trouser pockets respectively. A phantom experiment using a TLD suggested an effective dose equivalent of 2.2 mSv/y from a 1 μCi (37 kBq) radium dial worn for 16 h/day throughout the year (dose rate 0.375 μSv h(-1)). Eighteen wristwatches have also been assessed, but their dose rates are generally much lower (the arithmetic mean being 3.0 μSv h(-1)), although the highest ambient dose equivalent rate noted was 20 μSv h(-1).
A pocket compass gave rise to a similar ambient dose equivalent rate, of 20 μSv h(-1), to the pocket watches, with its cover open.
RADIUM DIAL WATCH COMPANY SERIES
Ambient dose equivalent rates have been measured for fifteen pocket watches giving results of up to 30 μSv h(-1) at a distance of 2 cm taken with a series 1000 mini-rad from the front face (arithmetic mean ambient dose equivalent for pocket watches being 13.2 μSv h(-1)). This study re-examines the risk to health from radium ((226)Ra) dial watches.
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