Welcome to another edition of Time Suck Short Sucks.

I'm Dan Cummins, and today I will be sharing the story of the Radium Girls.

A story that took place at a very strange time for radiation, shortly after its discovery,

but before most people knew how incredibly dangerous it was.

Back when people were rubbing radioactive elements into their skin via radioactive face lotions, when people are brushing

their teeth with radioactive toothpaste, when some people were even going to sleep wearing a

radioactive jock strap, thinking they were radiating some strong sexual mojo directly into

their balls. And also when a bunch of women were hired to paint watches with highly

radioactive paint. During World War I, several factories were established across the U.S. to produce

luminous watch styles for the military. These glow-in-the-dark watches were critical for the success

of coordinated nighttime missions, and they just look cool. What made the watchers glow in the dark, though,

was decidedly not cool. It was paint that contained radium, a highly toxic radioactive element.

And when this watch was being mass produced, roughly 4,000 women were hired to paint these

luminous dials. Women were thought to be the best candidates for this job because their

smaller hands were supposedly better suited for precision work, and they were paid a lot less at the time than men.

Women were eager to take what was considered a high-paying job for a woman at that time, though, not knowing that the cost of their health would far outweigh any salary benefits they might receive.

Hard to enjoy that sweet cash when radiation

is grinding your bones down to dust when you still kind of need those bones pretty badly.

Hard to spin around on the dance floor to some big band jams and enjoy a steak dinner when your spine

has radiation holes in it and your teeth have fallen out of what little is left of your jaw.

Thousands of young women in the U.S. and Canada were hired to work in factories, and then over

the next handful of years, dozens will die, hundreds of others will suffer various ill health

...