-
Rochellaine replied to the topic For All The Historical Fictioners in the forum General Writing Discussions 6 years, 11 months ago
@seekjustice @valtmy Speaking of strange cosmetic ingredients I got halfway through a book about the Radium Girls before I had to put it down, being sick to my stomach. 🙂 The Radium Girls were girls hired to work in factories with radium before they learned how dangerous it was. They would paint it on watches to make them more shiny. But they liked its glow so much that they would take it home and paint it on their skin and teeth to make themselves glow “prettily”. They were taught to moisten the paint brushes in their mouths before painting, and they ate at their work benches in the radium dust, so they ingested a lot of radium as well. After working all day and being covered in radium dust they would glow as they walked home in the dark. Of course, it all made them very sick – their teeth would fall out, and their bones would weaken/crumble – and some of them died. The women finally decided to sue their employers, and eventually they won, but many had already become very sick and died.
Have either of you ever heard of the Radium Girls?










