In 1920, watchmaking in America was a nightmare. The watches made at that time could actually be deadly.
Have you ever thought about putting yourself in danger just wearing a watch? This would happen, if your watch was made in America in the 1920s. Those are watches that leave everyone involved from death to disability.
The real reason dates back to 1898, when the Curie couple found radium – a radioactive element that helped them win two Nobel prizes. Radium proved extremely useful in many fields, quickly turning the early decades of the 20th century into the era of radioactivity.
Radium appears in every aspect of life.
But perhaps everyone knows that radium is actually a double-edged sword, when it harms our body at the cellular level. In the beginning, people didn’t know it, but when they realized it, radium appeared in many aspects of life. From cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, to foods and drinks, radiation is also added.
Among them, there are death watches .
During World War I, there was a corporation in the United States called Radium . The corporation opened a factory in New Jersey, in which many young women workers sat all day painting the faces and hands of the watches.
The problem is that the paint they use contains radium.
Exposure to radium is already harmful, and the way they work is even worse. To get the thinnest, most beautiful paint strokes, workers often suck on the brush tip. They even secretly used this ink to paint their nails, because it is rare for any ink to be able to glow in the dark.
Many of the workers were young women who sat all day painting the faces and hands of the clocks.
The radioactive material is gradually absorbed into the patient’s body. Disaster happened, when hundreds of people suffered from anemia, their bones became so thin that they broke brittle without any reason. Others have bleeding gums, necrosis of the jaw, or are sick enough to die.
As a news report in 1938 read : “Charlotte Purcell, your left hand has been permanently lost to poisoning. This is the best example of disaster for the workers painting watches in the factory”.
A clock painted in radium in 1930. Even now, the hour hand still glows.
Or as in the case of Millie Maggia in 1922. She was so contaminated with radiation that her whole body collapsed, and had to watch her body decay with her own eyes. Even her entire jawbone seemed to come off completely.
Some victims even had radiation eaten into the bones, leaving giant tumors. In return, they can glow in the night, weird enough to make children cry.
But the truth is more terrible, this disaster is also a testament to the reality of sexism in society in the past.
Female workers before working also questioned the safety of this paint. The answer they received was “yes, very safe”, but the truth is that the businesses of that time were completely aware of the harmful effects of radiation. The proof is that male workers in the factory are protected by metal plates to avoid radiation exposure, while women are not.
Many people are so radioactive that they can glow in the night, weird enough to make children cry.
United States Radium Corporation at that time completely denied responsibility, saying that employees just wanted to extort money from the company. They even went so far as to seek to dent the reputations of female workers, spreading the word that their condition was due to syphilis.
Brave women fought for the right to work in a safe environment, while their condition worsened. Their bones are probably still glowing today.
In 1928, Sabin Von Sochocky – one of the founders of the United States Radium Corporation passed away, because his own invention was radium paint .
A group of female workers later also filed a lawsuit against this corporation. The lawsuit dragged on and on, and when Wolfe Donohue’s hospital bed application was filed in 1938, it all ended with a new safety law being created.