Radium Girls a must watch movie

[Pelicovert2]

Boys,

This is a must-watch movie for all horology fans. Radium Girls (the Orange girls) a great picture about a group of lovely ladies who contracted radiation poisoning from painting our beautiful vintage dials. 2 .

Back in the days, we had a couple of tall and thin lead tubular containers, they looked like small missiles. The joke was that they were meant for Russia (cold War days)...
We were required to 'dump' all dials, bezel inserts, and other parts containing radium. A few times a year 'spooks' would swing by to pick them up.
In today's market, each of these "missiles" would be worth a fortune.

[Knappo 1307]

I live 20 minutes from Ottawa, where this took place. It really is an unbelievable story.

[bayerische]

To think how many of these clocks and watches are still around...? Sitting in peoples houses unsuspectedly.

Radium has a half life of 1600 years.

[Pelicovert2]

Originally Posted by bayerische

To think how many of these clocks and watches are still around...? Sitting in peoples houses unsuspectedly.

Radium has a half life of 1600 years.

Exactly my thoughts. Even incased in clocks or wristwatches, it's still poisonous.
I'd take tritium over radium any day of the week and twice on sunday. Its half-life is about 12 years.

[Rashid.bk]

Definitely will give this a look. A lot of magical and incredible things transpired in the watch world between 1900-1960, what an amazing era, and my favorite by a wide margin. The world of horology made a huge leap in design, engineering and technology during this time.
It set the foundation for everything we know today in my opinion.
Another decade and quartz came in the picture.

[MILGAUSS88]

I do not think you are going to be in too much danger wearing a radium watch:

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/h...of%20radiation.

The Radium Girls I believe produced dials for Westclox and maybe a few other "dollar'' watch companies. I doubt anyone is still wearing a 100 year old Westclox that was made to last a few years at most.

Just trying to put some perspective on this.

[RW16610]

I remember reading a lengthy story / article about this years ago. It would be great to also see this as a film, so I'll be keeping an eye out and hope to watch this.

[Old Expat Beast]

There's a couple of books, too; this being the most recent: https://www.amazon.com/Radium-Girls-...s=books&sr=1-1

[Knappo 1307]

One of the parts of the documentary, the girls would tell how between dips in the radium, they would lick the brush to make the bristles pinpoint. They would also paint their teeth with the radium and shut off the light and laugh at each others teeth glowing in the dark. Many of those girls died of massive jaw and skull tumors. There are many different stories on youtube about it.