4,000 women working in factories, 226 Ra of radium in a watch, one lie, radium was safe. Thousands of women died due to the lies their boss had conveyed, radium was safe. The story of the Radium Girls is not widely known throughout the country, yet its impacts were substantial. In order to understand the impacts of the Radium Girls today, we must look back at the court case, when the factories were open and their conditions, and when radium was discovered. During the 1900s, women across the country were working in factories painting radium on the faces of watch dials. For the time being, the job seemed amazing as the factories were spotless, the pay was high and it gave women access to radium. These women in the factories would ingest the radium…show more content… Radium’s president stated, “one of the most damnable travesties of justice that has ever come to our attention.What was then considered an act of kindness on our part has since been turned against us." During this trial it had also come out that the supposed deaths due to syphilis were truly due to the radiation poisoning from working in the factories. Without this trial, the lies about the safety of radium would have never come out, as radium would still be used in products today, impacting every consumer. In the early 1900s, the U.S. Radium Dial Company was founded by Joseph A. Kelly in Orange, NJ. Following this opening, two additional factories were opened in CT and IL. These factories hired entirely women aged eleven to sixteen to paint a radium and water paint like mixture on watch faces. The women working in these factories were known to paint their lips, teeth, and even skin without their managers knowing. These factories were spotless and paid well for that time. The U.S. pay scale census states, “In 1915, the pay scale was unequal for men and women. The salary for 17% of men at the time was 12-15$ a week, yet 16.5% of all women over the age of 16 made 6-7$ a
