Radium Dial Company
{{Short description|Defunct American company}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Radium Dial Company
| logo =
| type =
| industry = Radium paint, radioactive materials{{which|date=November 2024}}
| fate = Dissolved{{when|date=November 2024}}
| defunct =
| predecessor =
| successor =
| founded = {{Start date and age|1917}}
| founder =
| hq_location_city = Ottawa, Illinois
| hq_location_country = United States
| area_served =
| key_people = Joseph A. Kelly Sr.
| products =
| owner =
| num_employees = 1000+
| num_employees_year = 1925
| parent = Standard Chemical Company
| website =
}}
The Radium Dial Company was one of a few now defunct United States companies, along with the United States Radium Corporation, involved in the painting of clocks, watches and other instrument dials using radioluminescent paint containing radium. The resulting dials are now collectively known as radium dials. The luminous paint used on the dials contained a mixture of zinc sulfide activated with silver, and powdered radium, a product that the Radium Dial Company named Luma. However, unlike the US Radium Corporation, Radium Dial Company was specifically set up to only paint dials, and no other radium processing took place at the premises.
The company is notable for being involved in the radium poisoning of the Radium Girls. The workers in the factories were told that the radium paint was harmless. Radium's negative health effects were well-known at the time, however it was thought that small amounts of radium were not dangerous and even a cure for lack of energy.{{cite news |last=Prisco |first=Jacopo |date=2017-12-19 |title=Radium Girls: The dark times of luminous watches |url=https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/19/style/radium-girls-radioactive-paint/index.html |work=CNN |access-date=2024-05-28|ref=none}} The workers in the factories consumed deadly amounts of radium due to being told by management to "point" their brushes on their lips for a fine tip.{{cite web |date=2020-09-10 |title=Radium Girls |url=https://americanhistory.si.edu/girlhood/work/radium-girls |access-date=2021-06-18 |website=National Museum of American History |language=en}} The young workers also used the radium paints to adorn their fingernails, lips and teeth to make them glow. This led to significant health problems and deaths among the company's workforce. The workers eventually sued Radium Dial Company and received financial compensation for their health problems, though the Radium Dial Company continuously appealed so this process took years and many workers had already died of their injuries.{{cite journal |last1=DeVille |first1=Kenneth A. |last2=Steiner |first2=Mark E. |date=Spring 1997 |title=The New Jersey Radium Dial Workers and the Dynamics of Occupational Disease Litigation in the Early Twentieth Century |url=https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol62/iss2/2/ |journal=Missouri Law Review |volume=62 |issue=2 |pages=1–35 |access-date=2024-05-28}} This litigation led to significant reforms in workplace safety and eventually led to the establishment of OSHA decades later.
History
The Radium Dial Company was started in 1917 and was in full production of painted dials by 1918. The company was a division of the Standard Chemical Company based in the Marshall Field Annex building in Chicago. In 1920 the company relocated to Peru, Illinois to closer proximity to the clock manufacturer and major customer, Westclox.
By 1922 the company had moved to a former high school building at 1022 Columbus Street in Ottawa, Illinois{{Cite book |last=Moore |first=Kate |title=The Radium Girls |publisher=Sourcebooks |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-4926-5095-9 |publication-place=Naperville, Illinois |pages=39 |language=en |chapter=6 |lccn=2016040681 |quote='Girls Wanted,' it declared. And then continued: 'Several girls, 18 years or over, for fine brushwork. This is a studio proposition, the work is clean and healthful, surroundings pleasant. Apply to Miss Murray, old high school building, 1022 Columbus Street.' |orig-date=2016}} where it remained until the mid-1930s. At the highest point in production (around 1925), the Radium Dial Company employed around 1,000 young women who turned out around 4,300 dials each day{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}.
The company was headed by Joseph A. Kelly Sr. at the time of its dissolution during the trial. Kelly opened up a new corporation called Luminous Processes Inc. a few blocks away from the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois shortly after closing down the Radium Dial Company.{{cite web | title = The Radium Girls: An Illinois Tragedy | date = 25 January 2018| url = http://www.nprillinois.org/post/radium-girls-illinois-tragedy#stream/0}}{{cite web | title = The Factory of the 'Radium Girls' Is a Superfund Site | website = The Atlantic | date = 15 March 2017 | url = https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/radium-superfund-legacy/622528/}} Luminous Processes Inc. continued producing fluorescent watch dials powered by radium radioactivity until 1978.{{cite web|title=The documentary film 'Radium City'|website=Los Angeles Times |date=9 January 1988 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-01-09-ca-8748-story.html}}{{cite news|title=From a NY Times article concerning Kelly: "High Radiation Found in Plant On East 44th St." - Radium Chemical, headed by Joseph A. Kelly Jr., 69 years old, of Manhattan, has been under pressure by State Attorney General Robert Abrams to empty and decontaminate its highly radioactive plant at 60-06 27th Avenue in Woodside, Queens. Mr. Kelly's father operated the Radium Dial Company of Ottawa, Ill., whose practices were blamed for the cancer deaths of scores of young watch-dial painters in the 1920s and 30s.|work=The New York Times |date=5 May 1988 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/05/nyregion/high-radiation-found-in-plant-on-east-44th-st.html |last1=Pitt |first1=David E. }}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
- [http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/documents/fullText/ACC0029.pdf Radium in Humans: A review of US Studies]
- [https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/pha/OttawaRadiationAreas/OttawaRadiationAreasPHA072506.pdf Petitioned Public Health Assessment, Ottawa Radiation Areas, Ottawa, LaSalle County, Illinois]
- [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFD71430F935A1575AC0A961948260 Film Festival; A View of the Radium Dial Horror]
Category:Nuclear safety and security
Category:American companies established in 1917
Category:Manufacturing companies established in 1917