In the spring of 1917, the United States had just entered the First World War, and the country was mobilizing for a conflict that would demand enormous sacrifices. In Orange, New Jersey, a young woman named Grace Fryer watched as her brothers were sent off to fight. Determined to do her part, she sought work that would support her family and contribute to the war effort. Just days after America joined the war, Grace, then eighteen years old, found employment at the United States Radium Corporation in her hometown.
The company produced a remarkable new product that had become an essential tool for soldiers fighting in the dark. The paint, invented in 1902 by William J. Hammer, was called Undark. It was a glow-in-the-dark substance that allowed troops to read their military dials and wristwatches at night.
The paint was also used in household goods, including light switches, house numbers, and even doll eyes. The demand for these products was immense, and the company needed workers to apply the glowing material to countless tiny dials. While health concerns had begun to surface in scientific circles, United States Radium maintained that its paint was absolutely harmless in such minute quantities. For consumers, this claim may have held some truth, but for the workers who handled the paint day after day, the reality was far darker.
Unlike many other factories at the time, the company was more than willing to employ women. In fact, its painting staff was composed almost entirely of teenage girls, whose steady hands were considered perfect for the delicate work. The wages were around three times what a standard factory job paid, making these young women among the highest-paid female workers in the country. For poor working girls, it was an elite position, and the studio atmosphere, where friends and siblings often worked side by side, added to its appeal.
Grace later worked alongside her younger sister Adelaide, although that arrangement ended when the talkative sister was eventually dismissed. The work itself required great precision. The women were taught to paint the tiny numbers and lines on the dials with exacting accuracy, and one of the techniques they were trained to use was called lip-pointing. After a few strokes, a paintbrush tended to lose its sharp shape, so the women were instructed to use their lips to keep the tips clean and pointed.
Every time they placed the brush between their lips, they swallowed a tiny amount of the flavorless glowing paint. When some young women worried about whether the paint could hurt them, managers reassured them that it was not dangerous. They were told that the only side effect of consuming small amounts was rosy cheeks. At the time, many people genuinely believed that small quantities of radium were beneficial to health, and the substance was even marketed as a medical elixir.
In the studio, the novelty of the paint was irresistible. Many girls painted their fingernails, their dresses, and even their teeth so that they would shine at night. In time, many of the workers themselves began to glow in the dark. It was a striking visual, but a terrible sign.
These women would later become known as the ghost girls. What they did not know was that the scientific community and the company itself were aware of the dangers. United States Radium had sponsored research suggesting the positive effects of small amounts of radium, and leading papers stated that it would add years to people’s lives. Yet while scientists at the plant took precautions, using lead aprons, tongs, and protective screens, the young women were given no such protection.
They were left entirely exposed to the effects of radium poisoning. For several years, the work seemed normal. Then, in 1922, Grace’s colleague Molly Magia fell ill and had to leave her job. She had no idea what was wrong with her.
It began with a toothache, then one tooth after another fell out. Soon she was suffering agonizing pains that left her unable to walk, yet doctors claimed they could find nothing wrong. Eventually, she lost all her teeth and even her jawbone, which her dentist simply lifted out of her mouth. Molly’s body was being destroyed from within.
By September 1922, just eight months after her first toothache, she was dead. She was the first of the dial painters to pass away, but her case was not unique. Shortly after Molly’s death, Grace and many other dial painters began suffering from serious bone problems, particularly in the jaw. The mysterious deaths followed in quick succession, and United States Radium grew alarmed.
The company launched a disinformation campaign to conceal the cause of the illnesses, cooperating with doctors to blame the deaths on syphilis. This destroyed the reputations of the dead women and allowed the company to deny responsibility. In 1924, hoping to disprove any link between dial painting and the illnesses, they commissioned Cecil Drinker, a Harvard physiology professor, to study the factory’s working conditions. His findings were the opposite of what they expected: he confirmed the connection between radium and the women’s deaths.
The company president was outraged and suppressed the report, financing new studies that reported no link at all. By 1925, Grace’s health was deteriorating rapidly. Her jaw was growing weaker, her spine was crushing down, and she was forced to wear a steel back brace. Her doctor suspected that her former employment might be the cause.
Grace, who had witnessed what had happened to so many of her colleagues, sought a specialist named Frederick Flynn to examine her. Despite all the clear signs, Flynn stated that her condition had nothing to do with her previous job. There was good reason for this: Flynn was not a specialist or even a doctor. He was a toxicologist working for United States Radium.
That same year, the company’s first male employee died of unknown causes, just like many of the radium girls. At last, experts began a serious investigation. The original Drinker report had been silenced, and the scientific community relied on limited knowledge. The widespread belief that small amounts of radium were safe remained difficult to disprove.
Then a doctor named Harrison Martland proved once and for all that the strange illnesses and deaths were indeed caused by radium poisoning. Through testing, he discovered the serious and irreversible damage that occurred when radium entered the body. Ingested radium emits constant radiation, creating holes inside the bones and destroying the body from within. Martland realized that the poisoning was always fatal.
The ghost girls, who had once glowed in the dark, now knew their deaths were certain. Grace Fryer became the driving force behind a lawsuit against United States Radium. Even as the health risks became widely known, dial painters were still being employed. Grace believed she did not have long to live, but she had a purpose beyond herself.
She said, “It is not for myself I care. I am thinking more of the hundreds of girls to whom this may serve as an example. ” The radium industry was powerful, and it even attempted to discredit Martland’s discovery. For two years, Grace searched for a lawyer, and many turned down the case.
Eventually, her persistence caught the attention of a young attorney named Raymond Berry, who agreed to take it on. Berry filed suit against United States Radium, representing Grace and four other dial painters, demanding two hundred fifty thousand dollars each in damages. A legal battle ensued, and Grace and her colleagues became a national story. The women’s health was declining rapidly, but the court system moved slowly.
In January 1928, they made their first court appearance. By that time, Grace had lost all of her teeth, could not walk, and wore a back brace, yet reporters still described her as pretty. The other radium girls were in similar or worse condition, with several bedridden. The following hearing was scheduled for April, but all of the women were too sick to attend.
The judge then adjourned the case until September, citing witnesses being on vacation in Europe. The decision drew huge backlash, with one newspaper editor calling it “a damnable travesty of justice. ” The public outrage forced the hearing to be rescheduled for early June. Time was running out.
The company was playing the waiting game, hoping to drag out the proceedings, and some of the women were given just four months to live. Days before the hearing, Berry secured an out-of-court settlement. The desperate radium girls reluctantly accepted, knowing they had little choice and little time left. Each woman received ten thousand dollars, and all of their medical and legal expenses were paid.
Although the sum was far less than they had hoped, Grace had accomplished her main objective. She had brought national attention to radium poisoning and the exploitation inside the radium industry. On the 27th of October 1933, Grace Fryer died in her hometown in New Jersey at the age of thirty-four. Though the legal battle had ended in what could be seen as a loss, it sparked enormous changes in the radium industry and labor rights nationwide.
The New Jersey radium girls inspired others. A dial painter named Catherine Wolf Donahue from Illinois read their story in the newspaper and, after seeing what they had accomplished, began her own legal battle in the mid-1930s against the Illinois firm Radium Dial. Like United States Radium, the company denied responsibility, lied, and covered up any link between employment and radium-related deaths, even interfering with autopsies to hide the truth. Catherine, suffering from terrible health problems caused by her conditions, was shunned for suing one of the few companies still operating during the Great Depression.
Her case finally went to court in 1938, and thanks to her testimony from her deathbed, she won. She died soon after, on the 27th of July 1938, at the age of thirty-five. Her victory was not hers alone, but for exploited workers nationwide. These cases led to life-saving regulations, and companies were finally compelled to take responsibility for the safety of their employees.
Thanks to the courage, determination, and sacrifice of Grace Fryer, Catherine Donahue, and the other radium girls, industrial safety standards in the United States were significantly tightened, saving countless others from a similar fate. And to this day, the radium girls, with the radium still embedded in their bones, continue to glow in their coffins.