SOLVED·1917·Orange, New Jersey·3 SOURCES·2 COVERAGE LINKS·UPDATED JUL 2026
All women or girls using radium paint with no protection or warnings in 1922, from- USRadiumGirls-Argonne1,ca1922-23-150dpi (cropped) — Credit: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
Beginning around 1917, the United States Radium Corporation (USRC) employed as many as 300 workers, mostly young women, at a factory in Orange, New Jersey, to hand-paint watch and instrument dials with self-luminous radium paint sold as "Undark." Similar operations followed at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois, founded in 1922, and at an unaffiliated Connecticut plant supplying the Waterbury Clock Company. Told the paint was harmless, painters were instructed to shape their brushes to a fine point with their lips and tongues — "lip, dip, paint" — because rags or water rinses slowed production; some painters also applied the paint to their nails, teeth, and faces for fun.
USRC's own chemists used lead screens, tongs, and masks around radium, and the company had circulated medical literature on radium's "injurious effects" even as painters worked unprotected. Harvard researchers who examined the Orange plant in the early 1920s found it saturated with radioactive dust; the company's president disputed that radium caused workers' illness, and a researcher's report submitted to the New Jersey Department of Labor was later found to have been altered in the company's favor. The unaltered findings were published despite a threatened lawsuit, and the labor commissioner's safety order led the factory to close.
Painters developed dental pain, loose teeth, anemia, bone fractures, and jaw necrosis — now called radium jaw — along with sterility and suppressed menstruation. The first dial painter died in 1923, her jaw reported to have fallen away from her skull beforehand; by 1924, fifty New Jersey painters were ill and a dozen had died. A 1925 cluster of similar deaths, including USRC chief chemist Dr. Edwin E. Leman and several female workers, prompted a county physician's investigation, and by 1927 more than fifty female workers were reported dead from radium poisoning. Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky, the paint's inventor, died of radium poisoning in November 1928, described as its 16th known victim.
Five USRC workers — Grace Fryer, Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub, Quinta McDonald, and Albina Larice — became known as the Radium Girls after suing the company; it took Fryer two years to find a lawyer willing to take the case. By their first court appearance in January 1928, two of the women were bedridden and none could raise an arm to take an oath. USRC denied wrongdoing but settled that autumn, before a jury could deliberate, paying each woman $10,000, a lifetime annuity, and medical and legal costs. All five were dead within the decade.
In Illinois, Radium Dial Company employees began showing poisoning symptoms in 1926 and 1927 but were told radium was safe and that the New Jersey cases involved viral infections. From 1937, five women — including Catherine Donahue, too ill to travel — pursued a claim before the Illinois Industrial Commission, which ruled in their favor in 1938; Radium Dial had since relocated to New York, and the commission would not enforce payment across state lines. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Radium Dial's appeal on October 23, 1939, upholding the ruling. Donahue had died by the time the matter was finally settled.
The litigation established injured workers' right to sue employers over labor abuse and helped build modern labor safety standards; in 1949, Congress passed a law compensating workers for occupational diseases. Radium-based paint was banned in the 1960s, though the last radium-paint factory did not close until 1978. A 1951 LIFE photo-essay, spotlighting the 1949 sinus-cancer death of Florence Kohler Casler, who had joined USRC in 1917, brought the dial painters' story to wide public attention.
Catherine Donahue, Grace Fryer, Quinta McDonald, Katherine Schaub, Florence Kohler Casler, Albina Larice, Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky, Edna Hussman, Dr. Edwin E. Leman
Date
1917
Location
Orange, New Jersey
Case status
solved
Case timeline
1917
Radium dial-painting begins at the United States Radium Corporation's factory in Orange, New Jersey, where as many as 300 workers, mostly women, hand-paint watch and instrument dials with radium-based paint sold as "Undark."
1922
The Radium Dial Company is established in Ottawa, Illinois, to paint clock dials for the Westclox Corporation using the same lip-pointing brush technique.
1923
The first dial painter dies; her jaw is reported to have fallen away from her skull before her death.
1924
Fifty women who worked at the New Jersey plant are reported ill, and a dozen have died.
1925
A cluster of similar deaths, including United States Radium Corporation chief chemist Dr. Edwin E. Leman and several female workers, prompts an investigation by a Newark county physician.
1926
Employees at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois, begin showing signs of radium poisoning.
1927
More than 50 female factory workers are reported to have died from radium poisoning caused by the dial paint.
1928-01
The five New Jersey plaintiffs make their first court appearance; two are bedridden and none can raise an arm to take an oath.
1928
The United States Radium Corporation settles the New Jersey lawsuit before the jury deliberates, paying each of the five women $10,000, a lifetime annuity, and medical and legal costs.
1928-11
Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky, inventor of the radium dial paint, dies of radium poisoning, described as its 16th known victim.
1937
Five Illinois dial painters retain an attorney to bring their case before the Illinois Industrial Commission.
1938
The Illinois Industrial Commission rules in favor of the women, but the Radium Dial Company has since relocated to New York and the commission does not enforce payment across state lines.
1939-10-23
The U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear the Radium Dial Company's appeal, upholding the ruling in the women's favor; Catherine Donahue has died by this point.
1949
Congress passes a law providing compensation for workers suffering from occupational diseases; the same year, Florence Kohler Casler, who had joined the United States Radium Corporation in 1917, dies of sinus cancer.
1951
A LIFE magazine photo-essay brings the story of the 1920s radium dial painters, including Casler's death, to wide public attention.
1978
The last factory manufacturing radium dial paint shuts down.
Best coverage
VIDEO
Bailey Sarian / 1 min
Little did they know, this factory would turn TOXIC
Illinois dial painter at the Radium Dial Company; too ill to travel, her case was heard at her home before the Illinois Industrial Commission, which ruled in her favor in 1938. She died before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that ruling in 1939.
Grace Fryer
VICTIM
Dial painter at the United States Radium Corporation's Orange, New Jersey plant; took two years to find a lawyer willing to sue the company and became one of the five plaintiffs known as the Radium Girls.
Quinta McDonald
VICTIM
One of the five United States Radium Corporation dial painters, known as the Radium Girls, whose 1928 lawsuit against the company was settled out of court.
Katherine Schaub
VICTIM
One of the five United States Radium Corporation dial painters, known as the Radium Girls, whose 1928 lawsuit against the company was settled out of court.
Florence Kohler Casler
VICTIM
Joined the United States Radium Corporation in 1917; died of sinus cancer in 1949, a death spotlighted in a 1951 LIFE magazine photo-essay about the dial painters.
Albina Larice
VICTIM
One of the five United States Radium Corporation dial painters, known as the Radium Girls, whose 1928 lawsuit against the company was settled out of court.
Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky
VICTIM
Inventor of the radium dial paint; died of radium poisoning in November 1928, described in sources as the 16th known victim of poisoning by radium dial paint.
Edna Hussman
VICTIM
One of the five United States Radium Corporation dial painters, known as the Radium Girls, whose 1928 lawsuit against the company was settled out of court.
Dr. Edwin E. Leman
VICTIM
Chief chemist at the United States Radium Corporation; his 1925 death was grouped among a cluster of similar deaths that prompted a county physician's investigation into radium exposure at the plant.
Roles reflect public records and court outcomes at the time of writing — supporting citations are on file under Sources.
Archival records
archival location
All women or girls using radium paint with no protection or warnings in 1922, from- USRadiumGirls-Argonne1,ca1922-23-150dpi (cropped)
Credit: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain · Source
Beginning in 1917, factory workers who came to be known as the Radium Girls were poisoned after being instructed to shape radium-paint brushes with their lips; the resulting illnesses, deaths, and lawsuits against the United States Radium Corporation and the Radium Dial Company reshaped U.S. occupational health and labor law.
