Summary
Highlights
The video opens with a historical context of radium, marketed as a miracle elixir and incorporated into various products, including drinking water and beauty items. The focus then shifts to the American Radium factory, where young women, including the Cavallo sisters, Bessie and Josephine, paint watch dials with radium-based paint. They are instructed to 'lip-point' their brushes, ingesting radium in the process.
Josephine begins to experience severe health issues, including dizziness, joint pain, and loose teeth. Bessie seeks help from Mr. Roeder, who arranges for the company doctor, Dr. Flint, to examine Josephine. Dr. Flint, however, misdiagnoses Josephine with syphilis, discrediting her symptoms and suggesting poor hygiene.
Bessie seeks outside help through Walt, meeting Katherine Wiley of the Consumer's League. Wiley reveals that dial painters have been falling ill and dying from radium poisoning, and suggests exhuming a deceased dial painter to confirm the diagnosis. Bessie realizes her older sister, Mary, who died three years prior with a similar misdiagnosis, might have been a victim. They exhume Mary, confirming radium poisoning as the cause of her death.
Bessie confronts her former co-workers, urging them to get tested, but many are skeptical, prioritizing their jobs or accepting American Radium's settlement offers. Bessie and Josephine, along with a few other affected women, decide to pursue a lawsuit. Their lawyer, Henry Berry, explains the difficulty of proving the company's knowledge of radium's toxicity without the 'Drinker Report.' The initial court proceedings are met with resistance from American Radium. Bessie faces intimidation tactics, including a hostile car chase.
Journalist Etta, a new friend of Bessie's, helps shed light on the Radium Girls' story. Etta shares her past experience with government-sanctioned violence against her community, emphasizing the importance of fighting for the truth. Josephine's health rapidly deteriorates, with a piece of her jaw falling out, highlighting the urgency of their case. The trial proceeds with Bessie testifying, detailing the company's instruction to lick brushes and Mary's diary entry suggesting Leech knew of the dangers.
Bessie convinces a dying Walter Leech, the inventor of Undark, to testify. Leech, once a mentor to the girls, reveals that American Radium and Mr. Roeder were aware of radium's dangers for years due to the Drinker Report. Dr. Katherine Drinker herself testifies, confirming her team's findings of radium's harmful effects and American Radium's suppression of the report. The court grants American Radium an 18-week recess, but public opinion shifts in favor of the Radium Girls. Letters of support pour in from across the country.
Butkiss, who once dismissed the dangers, reveals her sister died of cancer, a story that American Radium spun as a 'miracle cure' to protect her children's future. Bessie comforts her. Federal Judge Clark offers a settlement of $10,000 each and medical expenses, but without acknowledging radium's toxicity or banning its use. Despite Bessie's desire for full justice, the other girls, fearing for their lives, accept the settlement. The film concludes with Josephine's poetic reflection, hinting at a lasting impact despite the imperfect resolution, and highlighting that their fight, though not fully concluded, brought about significant awareness and change.