Radium Girls Research - Unit 12 extended project

The radium girls were a group of female factory workers who contracted radium poisoning from painting watch dials with luminous paint containing radium. This all took place in the early 20th Century. A corporation by the name "United States Radium Corporation" or "USRC" was one of the leading companies in the production of the luminous watch dials. This corporation used a radium paint which they called "Undark" which made the dials glow in the dark. The working conditions for these women in the corporations was what led to them their jaws decaying and dying to the radium poison because they were instructed to use a technique known as "lip-pointing" where they would shape the paintbrushes with their lips to ensure a fine pointed brush. This was the process that led to them digesting the radium, as when they were shaping the brush with their lips the brushes were laced with radium and they were doing this multiple times a day. 
No one knew the risks of the radiu at the time, so there was no adequate protective gear and they were pushed more and more to point the brushes with their mouths. Only a few certain company scientists and officials had an inclin on the sort of risk but didn't want to believe it. For example Dr. Von Sochocky was aware of potential dangers that the radium could hold but underestimated the severity of these risks as he didn't want to believe it so he left the company in the hands of Mr Arthur Roeder, practically letting this man take the fall for him. 
The symptoms that followed from this process was decaying of the jaw as the cells were dying they were suffering from health problems such as anemia, bone fractures and necrosis of the jaw which was called "radium jaw" or "phossy jaw" as they believed it wasn't the radium in the paint causing this at first but the phosphorus that was also in it. After all these illnesses started coming out and girls started dying a massive legal battle happened were fighting for the public attention to bring these factory officials and scientists to light for the damage they had been causing to these poor girls. The USRC was sued by these girls and in a long battle, they won compensation but most importantly the case was brought to the public. 
After this legal battle new laws and regulations concerning occupational health and safety being put into place because of the powerful story these radium girls went through. 

Dr. Von Sochocky

Dr. Sabin Arnold Von Sochocky was a chemist and one of the founders of the USRC, he was the one who invented the luminous paint called "undark." He discovered the luminous effects that radium held and so decided to apply it to paint which he then marketed this paint towards watch and instrument dials and various other applications. At the height of radium he thought nothing bad could come of it, and so it was said that the radium could cure cancer. So him and his other higher up officials would start employing mostly young women for as factory workers and he insisted on them using the "lip-pointing" method, the method that led to the necrosis of the jaw. Only when he found out that radium could have dangerous effects did he run away as he didn't want to believe it, he left the USRC under the hands of Arthur Roeder who became the new president of the corporation, so that Roeder could take the fall when it all became public. Later in his life, due to wanting to prove to himself that his radium could not be killing these girls did he decide to agree to autopsying the bodies of the radim victims and only then did he find out the effects that his paint he created could hold as he fell to the radium poisoning himself. He eventually died in 1928 aged 45 succumbing to the effects of the radium after the necrosis had slowly started in his hands. The role of Dr. Von Sochocky signified the changes in the labour rights and the workplace safety regulations so he did leave an impact even in death as he knew the mistakes he made and testified against Roeder after putting him in that mess in the first place.