Big business, working people and white lies
By Jennifer Liebrum
Radium. Liquid sunshine.
In the 1900s, it was billed as a cure-all for everything from hysteria and hay fever to cancer and constipation. It could polish your furniture, kill mosquitos, and brighten your smile. The very rich flocked to spas to bask in radium waters, or drank it as a tonic.
They were young women, some fresh out of grade school, promised salaries three times that of the average factory worker for a job that required no education or experience, just nimble fingers and stamina. They were hired as dial painters for a watch company seeking to capitalize on a greenish-white luminous paint to boost sales by offering glow-in-the-dark timepieces to the public, and to bolster a government contract as the country prepared to enter WWII.
It was honorable work and the girls were mesmerized by the stuff. They mixed a bit of radium with zinc sulfide to activate the glow, dipped their camel-hair brushes in, passed the brush between the lips to make a fine point, and detailed watch faces and military instrument panels. Hundreds of times a day they would ingest a small amount of radium.
Yet their workplaces were playful as they competed amongst themselves and painted their nails with the leftovers. Dust from the paint hovered over their heads before settling on their hair and clothes, much to their delight.
They were known as the shine girls. They literally glowed. They had no reason to fear the poison flickering inside them.
But within a few years, deeply behind the hype, doctors were educating corporations and the government about how wrong they had been to tout the metal. A New York Times article in 1925 spoke of “radium necrosis.” It literally meant the excruciating process of a jaw disintegrating, pushed apart by tumors. The cancer was incurable. Five women had already died. They all came from one of the watch factories.
Some of the Radium Girls filed suit. Settlements were reached, but the plaintiffs were dead within a few years.
“Radium Girls,” a play by D.W. Gregory about these women, opens at the Community Campus for a four-night run starting today, Feb. 26. Around 30 actors from Wood River High School will perform the drama.
Sarah Feltman plays New Jersey worker Grace Freyer. Ramsey Marquis plays Freyer’s fiancé, Tom. It is their effort to get compensation for her illness that brings the audience into the story.
“The play is significant because it does portray how working-class people will struggle against bigger corporations that have done them wrong,” Marquis said. “Many people struggle through these life-threatening illnesses, and they have had to cope with them in terms of how it affects their working and family lives. A lot of people can relate to an experience like that.”
Gracie Peterson plays Kathrine Wiley, head of the New Jersey Consumer’s League, which secured legal counsel for Freyer.
“It just shows you how vulnerable workers really are,” Peterson said. “We have so much blind faith in our employers because we need them. We think if we do a good job, they will take care of us. But when you hear about the consequences of such loyalty, you really have to stop and take a hard look at what we might not be asking about our food, our water, our schools and workplaces.”
“‘Radium Girls’ is quite the opposite from the slapstick comedic nature of our fall play, ‘Get Smart,’” said director Karl Nordstrom. “The student actors and crew have really bought into the story and learned so much about these women’s lives. I know audiences will love this heartbreaking story about these strong women who banded together to pursue justice.”
Where: Community Campus, Hailey
When: Wednesday, Feb. 26 and Thursday, Feb. 27 at 6 p.m.; Friday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 29 at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: adults $8; HS students, seniors and veterans $5; MS students $3; children $1.