That was why the men at the radium companies wore lead aprons in their laboratories and handled the radium with ivory-tipped tongs.
People had died of radium poisoning before the first dial painter ever picked up her brush. Ever since the glowing element had been discovered, it had been known to cause harm Marie Curie herself had suffered radiation burns from handling it. Savoy said that it wasn’t dangerous, that we didn’t need to be afraid."īut that wasn’t true. "Naturally you don’t want to put anything in your mouth that is going to hurt you. "The first thing we asked ‘Does this stuff hurt you?’" Mae Cubberley, who instructed Grace in the technique, later remembered. Every time the girls raised the brushes to their mouths, they swallowed a little of the glowing green paint. The girls were instructed to slip their paintbrushes between their lips to make a fine point - a practice called lip-pointing, or a "lip, dip, paint routine," as playwright Melanie Marnich later described it. Grace and her colleagues obediently followed the technique they’d been taught for the painstaking handiwork of painting the tiny dials, some of which were only 3.5 centimeters wide. They made the most of the perk, wearing their good dresses to the plant so they’d shine in the dance halls at night, and even painting radium onto their teeth for a smile that would knock their suitors dead. Radium’s luminosity was part of its allure, and the dial painters soon became known as the "ghost girls" - because by the time they finished their shifts, they themselves would glow in the dark. Many of them were teenagers, with small hands perfect for the artistic work, and they spread the message of their new job’s appeal through their friend and family networks often, whole sets of siblings worked alongside each other in the studio. Dial painting was "the elite job for the poor working girls" it paid more than three times the average factory job, and those lucky enough to land a position ranked in the top 5% of female workers nationally, giving the women financial freedom in a time of burgeoning female empowerment. With war declared, hundreds of working-class women flocked to the studio where they were employed to paint watches and military dials with the new element radium, which had been discovered by Marie Curie a little less than 20 years before. She had no idea that her new job would change her life - and workers’ rights - forever. It was four days after the US had joined World War I with two soldier brothers, Grace wanted to do all she could to help the war effort.
Lisa Martek, who plays the part of Radium Girl Pearl Payne, also is connecting with the characters and the actual lives they portray.On April 10, 1917, an 18-year-old woman named Grace Fryer started work as a dial painter at the United States Radium Corporation (USRC) in Orange, New Jersey. The story is similar to events in today’s culture, like the Flint water crisis,” she said.
“I am connecting with the story and learning the things companies have gotten away with keeping quiet about - dangers in the workplace - so they can keep making money. Joanna Davis, who portrays the straight-laced moralistic Frances O’Connel, has noticed ties between the play and recent events. Things like that kind of hit me,” she said. She had trouble with her feet, and I have had trouble with mine. The experience of playing Catherine Donahue has been special to me - I find we have things in common. “I am narrating the story of the Radium Girls. This play has been fun.”Įrin Roby, new to Crossroads Theatre, plays the part of Donahue. It sounds depressing, but the play itself is uplifting, showing women’s strength and what they were able to do in the ‘20s and ‘30s. “This group of women who painted watches with radium paint all end up dying from radium poisoning. “This play is based on all real people and real events,” said Director Morgan DeVere. Donahue and the other “Radium Girls,” soon began getting symptoms of radium poisoning. The workers of the Radium Dial Company painted hundreds of watch dials a day with luminous radium paint, and were told to point the brush with their lips to keep the shape of the bristles intact.
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