Almost immediately, however, it became clear that it was not just employees in the new atomic industries who were at risk: the whole planet was. “In the foreseeable future,” wrote the Consumers League, “millions of workers may be affected by ionizing radiations.”5 “We’d have plutonium cars, planes… It was infinite.”4 The large-scale production of radioactive materials seemed inevitable.
“We were going to live in an era of plutonium,” enthused one man who grew up in 1950s America. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) wrote: “If it hadn’t been for those dial-painters, the project’s management could have reasonably rejected the extreme precautions that were urged on it and thousands of workers might well have been, and might still be, in great danger.”2 The women had been, officials said, “invaluable.”3Įven after the war was over, the dial-painters’ legacy continued to save lives, as the world entered the age of atomic energy. Seaborg was determined that the women’s ghosts would not be joined by those of his colleagues who were working to win the war.Īfter the Allies had triumphed-helped by the deployment of those very atomic bombs that the Manhattan Project built-the debt the country owed to the radium girls was acknowledged in full. The Manhattan Project issued nonnegotiable safety guidelines to its workers, based directly on the radium safety standards.
Seaborg insisted that research be undertaken into plutonium it was found to be biomedically very similar to radium, meaning it would settle into the bones of anyone exposed to it. In addition, a chemist called Glenn Seaborg, who was employed on the most secret mission of them all-the Manhattan Project-wrote in his diary: “As I was making the rounds of the laboratory rooms this morning, I was suddenly struck by a disturbing vision the workers in the radium dial-painting industry.”1 Atomic-bomb making involved widespread use of radioactive plutonium, and he realized at once that similar hazards faced those working on the project. Radium dials were even bigger business than the first time round: the United States used more than 190 grams of radium for luminous dials during the Second World War in contrast, fewer than 30 grams were used worldwide in the earlier conflict. radium dial-painting industry exploded, with USRC alone increasing its personnel by 1,600 percent. The standards were set not a moment too soon, for seven months later America formally entered the war. Safety standards were introduced that protected a whole new generation of dial-painters, based entirely on knowledge gained from the bodies of those women who had come before. No longer could the government sit idly by: the radium girls’ demise demanded a response. Yet thanks to Catherine and Grace and their colleagues’ bravery in speaking out about what had happened to them, dial-painting was now the most feared occupation among young women. It meant that there was, once again, an enormous demand for luminous dials to light the dashboards of military machines and the wristwatches of soldiers taking up arms.
Although the women could not save themselves from the poison that riddled their bones, in countless ways their sacrifice saved many thousands of others.įifty days before the final triumph in Catherine Donohue’s case, war was declared in Europe.
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