The Radium Girls
By: Kaylee Reeter
Who were they?
The girls worked in a factory making watches. They would use a paint brush with radium to make the number. To make the paint brush tip just right they would use the lip point which is to put the paint brush in between their lips to make the point more pointy. The girls swallowed so much radium while making the watches.
Affects from radium
Some people had good out comes and some didn't. A girl named Frances Splettstocher worked in the factor making watches and in 1925 she started having bad pains in her throat. The tissue in her mouth was rotting and made a hole in her cheek. She died at 21 because of the affects of radium. Another girl Mae Keane lived till she was 107 and she survived so many things. She survived two types of cancer which she lived through because of the radium.
Radium Decay
Now radium can hurt us even more if we have too much of it. We take in low amounts and that doesn't make us sick but if we took in more we would be very sick or die. Radium also can give you cancer from the sun, tanning beds, and X-rays.