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New Jersey's Radioactive Contamination Disaster | The Radium Girls

Пікірлер: 260

  • @lonokolotowicz5597
    @lonokolotowicz55972 жыл бұрын

    I remember hauling the discarded Radium from Orange NJ as early as 1985. I was contracted to haul loads of 55 gal drum of soil to Utah. You would drive out I 80 to the 45 Mile marker and get off. This exit had nothing at it. You would revel south about 1 mile reach a gate and there was a security shed there with a phone. You pick up the phone, they asked who you were and you were then given instruction on where to drive to. You went to a pit, unloaded, checked by a tech with equipment then released.

  • @tomo9126

    @tomo9126

    2 жыл бұрын

    I a little worried that they had you just go to exit 45 in NJ and dump the dirt in a pit. The documents said Utah, but actually it's in Parsippany. Certainly wouldn't surprise me having lived in NJ my whole life.

  • @Alex-cb2gf
    @Alex-cb2gf2 жыл бұрын

    My grandmother knew some of the girls. She lived in Montclair. when the girls started getting sick she insisted it had to have something to do with that plant. Those girls were basically accused of being "loose" women . I believe in later years it became a super fund sight.

  • @str8alphamale

    @str8alphamale

    2 жыл бұрын

    Yes, now they converted it to a football field. I still wouldn't go there if you paid me 1 million dollars.

  • @Billblom
    @Billblom2 жыл бұрын

    The plant in New Jersey was one of the 3 locations. The painting was done by women: one site in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917; one in Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s; and a third facility in Waterbury, Connecticut, also in the 1920s.

  • @brostenen
    @brostenen2 жыл бұрын

    I remember getting a toy in the late 1980's. And as soon as my mother found out that it was glowing in the dark, she would get grey in the face, and throw it out. She said that it was deadly and dangerous. Perhaps she thought that only radium glow, back when she was a child, and what I remember, is actually the legacy of radium.

  • @moonwalkerangel7008

    @moonwalkerangel7008

    2 жыл бұрын

    Radium paint was phased out in 1968 and any glow in the dark paint contains Zinc Sulfide and copper from 1968 onwards.

  • @brostenen

    @brostenen

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@moonwalkerangel7008 Yup. That was what they said happened in America. But I am from Denmark, so rules were different. What I was trying to say, is that my mother are quick to become afraid of things. And as my childhood was in the 1980's, then access to information were kind of limited compared to today. I bet she saw a documentation about radium at that time, or she had the fear from her own childhood in the 1950's.

  • @prudencepineapple9448
    @prudencepineapple94482 жыл бұрын

    They were buried in lead caskets. Today they are still emitting radiation. Sad story. There was also a famous golfer who drank uranium water which eventually killed him. His jaw just disintegrated.

  • @ohioyodertoter6827

    @ohioyodertoter6827

    2 жыл бұрын

    Gross 🤮

  • @crow578

    @crow578

    2 жыл бұрын

    Frank Zappa was one of the children who had radium placed in their nose. The US Army has injected plutonium in soldier's bloodstreams to see what would happen.

  • @ohioyodertoter6827

    @ohioyodertoter6827

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@crow578 stupidity 🤨

  • @maggirae1961
    @maggirae19612 жыл бұрын

    I am 74 and grew up close to Orange, NJ. I did hear about this fro my grandmother when young. So many lies about so much, when will people wake up? Poisons everywhere

  • @Bloated_Tony_Danza
    @Bloated_Tony_Danza2 жыл бұрын

    Personally, I think unsafe work practices are pressured a lot more by coworkers than it is by business owners, at least in my personal experience working in construction. For example, putting a dust mask on when working with drywall and fiberglass. There’s a pervasive “macho man” mentality with a lot of the guys, and the guy who cares least about his health is seen as cool and tough

  • @g1722uyt
    @g1722uyt2 жыл бұрын

    Occupational laws are great but getting the laws enforced is another thing. How many times have we seen a conglomerate pay cash and walk away from destroying people's lives their livelihood.

  • @edwardnigma9756
    @edwardnigma97562 жыл бұрын

    I remember reading about a while back, the reason radium stuck in the girls bodies was that it was similar to calcium but more binding, so it would accumulate in human bones in place of calcium. When the atom split it would leave holes in the skeleton. Hence the term for the incredibly fragile bones that ensued being called the “radium jaw”. The radiation obviously also damaged any immediate living tissue so your red and white blood were also compromised heavily, meaning you would probably die from disease or anemia if the collapse of your skeleton or tumours didn’t get you

  • @mikeseier4449
    @mikeseier44492 жыл бұрын

    I just read a book called Radium girls written by Kate Moore, It is an excellent telling of the horrible disfigurement and deaths these young ladies had to endure without hardly any compensation from the employers.

  • @Iamthelolrus
    @Iamthelolrus2 жыл бұрын

    Wait, do you mean the equivalent of 40k$ a year or they made 40k$ back then? I only ask because isn't that the equivalent of 400-500k$ now? If someone offered me half a million to paint numbers on a watch I'd think something was up with the deal...

  • @Dovi94

    @Dovi94

    2 жыл бұрын

    40K from then was worth the equivalent of 1.1M USD today.

  • @Crimson_Hawk_01

    @Crimson_Hawk_01

    2 жыл бұрын

    Yea did someone make a conversion mistake?

  • @PushingThroughThePain

    @PushingThroughThePain

    2 жыл бұрын

    It's the equivalent of $40k today. I read the book about the radium girls, and it was a decent amount of money for the time, but they were certainly not paying teenage girls $40k/yr in 1917 money 😅

  • @wapartist

    @wapartist

    2 жыл бұрын

    Was gonna say the same thing

  • @artysanmobile

    @artysanmobile

    2 жыл бұрын

    They knew something was up, told they were doing critical work for national security. What they didn’t know was the actual truth that the risk was enormous and largely unknown.

  • @SpicyPotato8675
    @SpicyPotato86752 жыл бұрын

    New Jersey is largely not a 'Toxic Wasteland' Only the northern areas are the stereotypical industrial centers and smokestacks. The vast majority of the state is farmlands and beaches.

  • @galacticbananastopmotions7292

    @galacticbananastopmotions7292

    Жыл бұрын

    Yeah, I live half time in Philly and half in the Pine Barrens and most of NJ is woods.

  • @kman-mi7su

    @kman-mi7su

    Жыл бұрын

    Sort of, there are places in South Jersey that are toxic wastelands too. Visit Camden and the surrounding areas that had industry along the Delaware river. Quite a few of those places are very polluted from over a century of industrial use. A good rule of thumb is that if the places were anywhere need the New York or Philadelphia metropolitan area, they have a long history of pollution.

  • @grayrabbit2211
    @grayrabbit22112 жыл бұрын

    I've heard of this and it's a very sad story. Yet history repeats itself with various things we're told are "safe" and "for our own good" are causing problems including death, with those people speaking out being vilified for it.

  • @HobbyOrganist

    @HobbyOrganist

    2 жыл бұрын

    Except they KNEW radiation was dangerous, like W.R. Grace executives KNEW for decades their Zonolite" vermiculite attic insulation was contaminated by deadly asbestos but kept it QUIET, and ordered company doctors treating workers with symptoms to tell them they had HEART problems. The plant manager was in court testifying about it and admitted, yeah they KNEW their product was contaminated, and nope, they didn't tell the workers and deliberately kept it quiet. As a result some 80 million homes and businesses still have this deadly asbestos contaminated insulation in their attics, workers went home in their cars covered with dust- exposing their entire family to it, and even more when the housewives washed the husbands work clothes in the same washer loads as the children's clothes and their own. The local school was given tons of free tailings from the mine to use to make a running track, people brought tailings home for their gardens, walkways and driveways- all of it was contaminated by asbestos. The cancer and lung disease connection was already known and proven DECADES before Grace was selling their products, it wasn't that nobody knew, it was GRACE CO willingly and criminally IGNORED and covered it up for profits. Half the town's residents of Libby Mt either died of asbestos related cancers or were severely sickened, the mine property was a superfund cleanup site, every house in the city had to be decontaminated and the ground around them dug up and replaced. Every train and truck used to transport the Zonolite attic insulation which was sold in paper pages at local hardware stores- was contaminated, every store where it was sold was contaminated as were customer's cars, clothes and homes. So what did W.R. Grace Co DO when lawsuits started? why, the most "honorable" American thing they could do of course!! they filed for BANKRUPTCY protection, re-organised as a "new" company, and they are still in business to-day after leaving everyone holding the bag! Search youtube for "The deadly dust" and "Libbye montana asbestos" and see the interviews with victims, former workers, and the testimony by that prick plant manager who clearly didnt give a damn with his- "Yep, we knew but told no one" attitude

  • @darthmaul216

    @darthmaul216

    2 жыл бұрын

    Like those who spoke out about the dangers of increasing atmospheric CO2 in the late 1800s

  • @boringbastard4920

    @boringbastard4920

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@darthmaul216 what i dont like the most about that debate is 1. Most recoginzed climate scientist involved in fraud with climate data. 2 everyone who debate against it lose face and funding 3 goverments around the world use this power to do whatever they want in climate change name 4 goverment scientist dont need to prove anything because it is very hard and complex to prove it is man made. 5 they tell the countries that have warm weather that it will become warmer and colder in cold countries. Anything to make us listen. 6 the massive deforestation going on in America is mostly ignored as a massive contributer to global climate change.7 co2 in atmosfar is massive, gasses in atmosfar alot more than the volum of the seas combined. But co2 we can measure and tax. Seem to me money is the driving force. I could go on...

  • @billynomates920

    @billynomates920

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@darthmaul216 no.

  • @robertely686

    @robertely686

    2 жыл бұрын

    ​@@darthmaul216 more like those that spoke out about lead poisoning in the 1700s, 200 years before leaded paint and leaded petrol.

  • @danpeppers4976
    @danpeppers49762 жыл бұрын

    Great video! I loved the history of the site, the cleanup, and the pictures of the buildings before they were demolished! Another interesting NJ radioactive contamination site is in Gloucester City and Camden, in the areas surrounding the Welsbach and General gas mantle companies. Radioactive ore and waste was used as fill material and spread throughout the cities. Scary, yet interesting!

  • @jetsons101
    @jetsons1012 жыл бұрын

    I wouldn't trust New Jersey to do anything right except raise taxes.

  • @tomo9126

    @tomo9126

    2 жыл бұрын

    Be careful insulting Dear Leader Murphy. All hail Dear Leader! All hail Dear Leader! All hail Dear Leader! All hail Dear Leader!

  • @abcde_fz
    @abcde_fz2 жыл бұрын

    Hell, all you need to do is drive up the New Jersey Turnpike. About 30 miles outside NYC The Garden State starts looking like BOTH Blade Runner movies. Like driving through a 30-mile-wide oil refinery. I was born near Camden, myself. Thank god my parents moved me back from there to where they came from, the northern Maryland Suburbs. Much nicer.

  • @str8alphamale

    @str8alphamale

    2 жыл бұрын

    Lol Facts. At one point on the NJ Turnpike, you can see the 🔥 marsh pits by Fish House Road from the toxicity of the dumps. Even the air had a funky smell to it.

  • @1080GotIt
    @1080GotIt2 жыл бұрын

    New Jersey native here... checking in. ✔️

  • @mikeyfn-a6684
    @mikeyfn-a66842 жыл бұрын

    Me and my lady's mother were just talking about these poor women last week at dinner on Mother's Day. Since I call NJ home, and have lately been thankful I never got an NJ tattoo; I really love your videos man. 👌💯

  • @joeottsoulbikes415
    @joeottsoulbikes4152 жыл бұрын

    I had a watch from age 10 until I was 14 that had numbers, 15min points marked with dots and the arms including seconds hand all painted with radium. It was a military watch that my dad was issued in Vietnam. I thought it was sooo coool that it glowed in the dark. I didn't know it glowed because of radioactivity. I thought it had to get sunlight to glow. While at a doctors appointment on base the Dr. recognized what it was. He pulled my mom aside and told her. She told me the Dr. collected nice watches and wanted to buy mine for $50. I said ok. She stepped out of the room with the Dr. and when she came back she had $50 that she actually got out of her purse. The Dr. ran test to make sure I was ok and had the watch deposed of by the base ordinance and hazardous material team. My mom told me the truth a year later. She did not want me freaking out thinking I was going to die. I would freak out if I even got a cold thinking it was the end of everything. I was a bit of a hypochondriac at that age since at 8 yrs old I almost blew my self up and burned the shed down with my chemistry set. I was randomly mixing things and boiling stuff with the bunsen burner when I put some volatile metals in a liquid that instantly sparked and blew up the glass mixing jar catching the wall and table on fire. I was sick for a while due inhalation of sodium chlorine, cadmium, boron, and sulfuric acid that was in the fire and vaporized before I was dragged out by a fireman. Life as a kid was exciting in the 70s and 80s. You didnt ask permission, read directions, wear a helmet and pads. You just put a board on a stack of bricks and rolled down the hill pn a rocking horse with wheels hoping you got to keep your teeth and CPS didn't take away your switch blade away and send you you to reform school with Matt Dylan.

  • @stephendennis5969
    @stephendennis59692 жыл бұрын

    It’s not the radium that glows. It’s the phosphor. The radium causes the phosphor to glow. The phosphor looses it’s glow over the years, however you can still get it to glow temporarily by charging it with light. They are still quite radio active but harmless as long as you leave it behind the face glass, don’t handle it or ingest it.

  • @moonwalkerangel7008

    @moonwalkerangel7008

    2 жыл бұрын

    I believe the phosphor was Zinc Sulfide, the same phosphor we still use today, just replacing Radium with Copper.

  • @joyce-aynharris5164
    @joyce-aynharris51642 жыл бұрын

    Great video, but you are mistaken on one fact. The girls did not make anywhere close to 40k a year. They were paid 1.5 cents per watch. If they painted 55k dials a year as you said, that would mean $825 a year - equal to about 20k a year in today's dollars.

  • @ITSHISTORY

    @ITSHISTORY

    2 жыл бұрын

    I would like to make a retraction: Staff. “How the Story of the Radium Girls Made Its Way into Pop Culture: Facts, Fiction & Film.” ARTpublika Magazine, ARTpublika Magazine, 14 Apr. 2022, www.artpublikamag.com/post/how-the-story-of-the-radium-girls-made-its-way-into-pop-culture-facts-fiction-and-film. - 3rd paragraph states the Factory made 40,000 dollars per year. Roberts, William Clifford. “Facts and Ideas from Anywhere.” Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center), Baylor Health Care System, Oct. 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5595405/. - 7th paragraph states the girls made 370 dollars a week.

  • @tzkelley

    @tzkelley

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@ITSHISTORY yeah, $40K per year in 1941 would be about $640K per year in today's dollars. Sign me up, cancer and all! :)

  • @dawsonfradin9071
    @dawsonfradin90712 жыл бұрын

    I actually inherited one of the compasses made by them. No one in my family knew what it was until it was presented to me. It was a unanimous choice to have it given to me... not sure what to make of that.

  • @HamguyBacon

    @HamguyBacon

    2 жыл бұрын

    They knew.

  • @galacticbananastopmotions7292

    @galacticbananastopmotions7292

    Жыл бұрын

    😭

  • @Zoubirking-1970
    @Zoubirking-19702 жыл бұрын

    Hazards like this still happening to this modern days in modern fashion

  • @efishe22292

    @efishe22292

    Ай бұрын

    Can you explain?

  • @Trag-zj2yo
    @Trag-zj2yo2 жыл бұрын

    Several careers involved with radioactive industry have experienced similar issues.

  • @artysanmobile
    @artysanmobile2 жыл бұрын

    How does any ONE person, much less an entire corporate structure, live with their evil self for perpetuating this mass suffering and death for mere money? Honestly, I don’t know. I only know examples of such reprehensible behavior are not rare.

  • @curtiskretzer8898

    @curtiskretzer8898

    2 жыл бұрын

    On🛏w/mattresses made of sweet,dirty💵

  • @stevencooper2464
    @stevencooper24642 жыл бұрын

    Back in the early seventies I bought a watch made by Sensor that had a tritium display, guaranteed to glow for 30 years. The watch itself stopped working about 10 years later, but that display kept right on glowing for a very long time. Now 50 years later, it too has gone dark. It was the best, and most accurate watch I have ever owned.

  • @DTD110865

    @DTD110865

    2 жыл бұрын

    I don't know whether to laugh or cringe at that.

  • @pokerinthefrontliqueurinth4971
    @pokerinthefrontliqueurinth49712 жыл бұрын

    Isn't New Jersey also where they made Ethyl also know as leaded gas? And a home to dozens of chemical companies throughout the years?

  • @jjames3793

    @jjames3793

    2 жыл бұрын

    yup and also it was in nj were the first gas station attendants started to get sick and die.

  • @daveh7989
    @daveh79892 жыл бұрын

    We had Radium Girls in Waterbury Connecticut working at Waterbury Clock and US Time which became Timex. Many of them died from cancers.

  • @danajorgensen2560
    @danajorgensen25602 жыл бұрын

    There was another facility, maybe from a different company that was doing the same thing, located in the southern end of the state in Gloucester City, NJ. It was torn down in the late 1980's as a federal Superfund cleanup site. It also polluted a big chunk of Newton Creek running through the town.

  • @freakrx2349
    @freakrx23492 жыл бұрын

    We should have a Fallout game set in New Jersey

  • @CarsandCats

    @CarsandCats

    2 жыл бұрын

    Nuka Cola had a dark history, especially the Quantum flavor.

  • @taton5

    @taton5

    2 жыл бұрын

    Newark will probably look better ingame

  • @brycesweeney6792

    @brycesweeney6792

    2 жыл бұрын

    You could go there, it practically looks like a Fallout game

  • @PlanParadigms
    @PlanParadigms2 жыл бұрын

    For those collecting old watches or airplane parts.... The radium paint stops emitting light in about 10 years, but the radioactive radium has a half life 1400 years. These watches should not be disassembled or "re-lumed" by painting new phosphor.

  • @moonwalkerangel7008

    @moonwalkerangel7008

    2 жыл бұрын

    I thought it was 1600 years. I might not be right though.

  • @CC-oy8ii
    @CC-oy8ii2 жыл бұрын

    Oh they weren’t talking about the people

  • @christophercarbone2787
    @christophercarbone27872 жыл бұрын

    Don’t forget the BOMARC missile fire that irradiated a section of the base at Fort Dix, NJ. It’s all still there trapped in time like Pripyat.

  • @Earcandy73

    @Earcandy73

    2 жыл бұрын

    I drive past that site quite often. The trefoil signs are still on the fence.

  • @christophercarbone2787

    @christophercarbone2787

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@Earcandy73 that’s a small world! I got special permission to enter it for a project and despite being off a busy highway it is dead silent inside the compound. It was a total trip.9

  • @vondumozze738

    @vondumozze738

    2 жыл бұрын

    Most of that soil was removed several years ago. They even laid railroad tracks to the site to have the soil taken away by train. This was widely reported in local and state papers, maybe even some outside the US. I've kept an eye on the proceedings for a while, because I have lived within 10 mi of the launcher since 1978. I don't have all the details handy, but there was similar contamination to the US radium Corp travesty in Lock Haven PA. You could look it up.

  • @robertely686
    @robertely6862 жыл бұрын

    Thanks to our superior western system this was just a one off - well, apart from leaded paint, leaded petrol, diesel, Teflon, Oxycontin, powdered baby milk, tobacco, alcohol, fast food and a couple of other items that resulted in hardly any deaths at all.

  • @markfoley8582

    @markfoley8582

    2 жыл бұрын

    Fluoride in the drinking water and chemtrails ???

  • @crashmanno4933
    @crashmanno49332 жыл бұрын

    no way!!! it's history video directly relating to my hometown of Orange!!! what a time to be alive

  • @englishruraldoggynerd
    @englishruraldoggynerd2 жыл бұрын

    There’s a small beach in Scotland that is where radium waste, and building waste was dumped from the Timex factory nearby where they made watch dials, clock dials as well as WW2 cockpit instruments. The beach is fenced off because it is so dangerous still. In Scotland!

  • @Scale_Model_Mayhem
    @Scale_Model_Mayhem2 жыл бұрын

    NJ is notorious for toxic waste dumps. In the 80s in budd lake there was one. It was so bad toxic waste barrels were dumped in residential areas. People abandoned the neighborhood. The dump closed and now a mcmansion development is built on the site

  • @Crimson_Hawk_01
    @Crimson_Hawk_012 жыл бұрын

    They made about 75.00$ per day ( 1940 worth ). Someone made a serious mistake on that 40K part. It was also Piecework and that is an average.

  • @jasohavents
    @jasohavents2 жыл бұрын

    I mean for the most part so long as they didn't get it in their skin they probably would have been fine... But they were cleaning/wetting the brushes in their mouths... Thus introducing it past their skin and into their digestive tract. Meaning the radium would get carried through their entire body, irradiating everything along the way.

  • @greenspiraldragon
    @greenspiraldragon2 жыл бұрын

    Also happened in Ottawa Illinois. Some of the ladies were so radioactive they were buried in lead coffins.

  • @djdange01
    @djdange012 жыл бұрын

    this also happened at a lot of other difftent sites. i know in my city, waterbury, ct there were over 3 dozen women effected. They worked at the Waterbury Clock company which today is knows as TIMEX. i know when they died they burried then in lead lined coffins bc there bodies were radioactive and would be for 100s of years. Also the mamanget new it wasn't safe. threy wouldn't even enter the dial painting rooms. They knocked the factory down about 3 years ago in waterbury. its a huge browwfield site today bc of the rsdiun and is highly radioactove. My grandma grew up around the corner from the factory. She new a lot of girls and watched their jaws slowly deteriorate. i never hear about Timex's connection to this story in any documentsry BUT IT HAPPENED. "it takes a licking and keepss on ticken, just makes ur teeth fall out"

  • @HowardKlein1958
    @HowardKlein19588 ай бұрын

    I went to science museum in 1960's and they had an information section about radiation. I think it was the army doing it. I was about 9 years old and interested and the man asked me to show him my wrist watch. I offered my arm and he ran the Geiger counter over it which furiously went from a click to a loud noise. I carried on wearing it as no one told me it was a problem. Now 65 and not had any medical problems.

  • @sherirobinson6867
    @sherirobinson68672 жыл бұрын

    Good job telling this story. It's always a good story no matter how many times I've heard it .

  • @hewhohasnoidentity4377
    @hewhohasnoidentity43772 жыл бұрын

    I remember "glow in the dark" everything was still very popular in the 1980s. As a kid I thought it was an odd feature to include on so many items from stickers to plastic toys to paint, switches, markers, almost anything could have a glow in the dark component to it. Then as I had my first science classes in Jr high school I heard about the radiation involved with stuff glowing in the dark and my reaction was pretty much "Well Ya, no sh** Sherlock" I assume by the 1980's there were technical advances to make the manufacturing and end products safer. Unfortunately the government was also fine with me eating lead as a kid so, assumptions remain what they are known for.

  • @grayrabbit2211

    @grayrabbit2211

    2 жыл бұрын

    The 1980s glow-in-the-dark stuff wasn't radioactive. Radium glows on its own due to radioactive decay, which is where the problem lay. I still have a tritium vial on my keychain. Still glowing after 10+ years. Fortunately tritium is nowhere near as dangerous as radium.

  • @IggyStardust1967

    @IggyStardust1967

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@grayrabbit2211 Still, with many of us 1980s teenagers having been born in the 1960s, it's possible that we could have been exposed to these things, since they weren't ended until 1968 (according to the video). I had (may still have) an old dial clock that had glow in the dark properties. I'm not sure how old that little clock I had is, and I'm not worried about it, as there's nothing for it now. But if I run across it, I'll definitely do some research on it. You just never know.

  • @Kimberly-dt4ko

    @Kimberly-dt4ko

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@IggyStardust1967 I also had a glow in the dark alarm clock as a kid. It was a wind up with two big bells on top. I believe I purchased it in the 70's. This had me wondering what was on those numbers and hands.

  • @moonwalkerangel7008

    @moonwalkerangel7008

    2 жыл бұрын

    They still use the same phosphor (Zinc Sulfide) but they removed the Radium salts and replaced it with Copper. That’s in most Glow in the dark toys, but some watches do contain Tritium.

  • @redline1916
    @redline19162 жыл бұрын

    It's always been a toxic wasteland. Just observe the people's behavior here and you'll get what I mean.

  • @828enigma6
    @828enigma62 жыл бұрын

    Not well known but the Baby Ben series of bedside clocks that had glow in the dark numbers and hands used radium to make them glow until the early fifties. Now collectors items, the radium is still quite active despite the paint that actually glowed has long since worn out. The amout of radiation emitted is not particularly dangerous now, but I wouldn't recommend sleeping in the same room with it. 25-30 ' should bring it down to a safe level.

  • @lloydster9000
    @lloydster90002 жыл бұрын

    There was a similar factory in Ottawa, IL around that time. Same process, but a different company.

  • @JenniferinIllinois

    @JenniferinIllinois

    2 жыл бұрын

    I was going to mention that Ottawa was another site that had 'Radium Girls'.

  • @lloydster9000

    @lloydster9000

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@JenniferinIllinois awesome! I live about an hour from Ottawa. Nice little town.

  • @jbmatitagain5091
    @jbmatitagain50912 жыл бұрын

    40k a year impossible! Neil Armstrongs' salary was $39k to goto the moon & was highest paid government employee at the time, so 40k literally 3 generations earlier is simply impossible

  • @josephalfonsoamantia7028

    @josephalfonsoamantia7028

    2 жыл бұрын

    Maybe he meant to say there were paid $40,000 per year in today's money, otherwise I don't believe it. $40,000 per year is way too much for that time period.

  • @Nicksuavemusic
    @Nicksuavemusic2 жыл бұрын

    Greed will be the downfall of society

  • @Drskopf
    @Drskopf2 жыл бұрын

    About a month ago I saw a similar Story around 2011 (even in the 21st century we still see same problem) at a Samsung plant in Seul that makes tactile Display for cellphones and such, the case was about a young woman making displays at that factory being exposed to radioactive or Chemical material (don't remember well) and the lawsuit and Workers protection and compensation campaign her father started after his only daughter's death!!

  • @str8alphamale
    @str8alphamale2 жыл бұрын

    Being that I lived not far from. Orange, one of the radium girls used to live off of Scotland road. Scotland rd is a county rd that runs throw a few towns/ counties. I study this story heavy. I think the house still stands there.

  • @doejohn8674
    @doejohn86742 жыл бұрын

    Several years until the medical community realized what is going, corporation insisting that everything is safe, doesn't remind me of anything happening in the last few years...

  • @darthmaul216

    @darthmaul216

    2 жыл бұрын

    You mean like opioids? This is why you always get a second opinion

  • @isabellenicoleherman6816
    @isabellenicoleherman68162 жыл бұрын

    40,000? Please double check that. Thank you. But Great show I never miss one and I go back and watch the older ones.

  • @LanceGrey
    @LanceGrey2 жыл бұрын

    Learned about the dial painters' poison in 3rd grade. (Abt..~1968) . . I went on to work with *Asbestos* as a teen & adult. in the '80s.

  • @HamguyBacon
    @HamguyBacon2 жыл бұрын

    The pharmaceutical corporations do the same today, they investigate themselves and find they do nothing wrong.

  • @joemazzola7387
    @joemazzola73872 жыл бұрын

    When I was a kid in the 60s there was a product called lightning bug glow juice It could be painted on surfaces and it would Glow in the dark

  • @hallkbrdz
    @hallkbrdz2 жыл бұрын

    Interesting. As a young boy I had a radium hand watch, and yes it was awesome at night. No need for batteries, always on. Wish I still had it.

  • @alpaykasal2902
    @alpaykasal29022 жыл бұрын

    Very illuminating.

  • @stickynorth
    @stickynorth2 жыл бұрын

    My absolute favourite episode of 1000 Ways to Die was the Radium Girls episode! So tragic!

  • @rmsflorida
    @rmsflorida2 жыл бұрын

    Not all the contamination sites were cleaned up. I room in a hotel in Newark, NJ. the dining room was fenced off in the hotel... Green fluid was oozed up thru the concrete in floor was removed and repoured 3 time in the attempt to stop the problem...I settle in the room for the night watching T.V. news about a issue in a school the concrete had cracks in a stairway . A white powder that children was exposed to and the children brushed up it while changing classes. ... The hotel I was in and the school was build atop of a toxic waste dump....I check out of that Hotel .

  • @jjames3793

    @jjames3793

    2 жыл бұрын

    a lot of schools in ny state are also built on top of former waist dumbs that belonged to compoies such as GE and other defense contractors and the reason why is because the companies would donate the land at no cost to the towns or cities with a clause in the deed that they are to forever be held harmless for any contamination.

  • @ronalddevine9587
    @ronalddevine95872 жыл бұрын

    WOW!!!!! I've never heard of this before. How unfortunate for those poor ladies. What material is used in modern glow in the dark watches?

  • @HobbyOrganist

    @HobbyOrganist

    2 жыл бұрын

    phosphors such as silver-activated zinc sulfide or doped strontium aluminate, it has to be activated by exposure to light and it doesn't last all that long before needing to be "recharged" by light again, that's why the radium was so good- it naturally glowed and didn't need to be "recharged"

  • @ronalddevine9587

    @ronalddevine9587

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@HobbyOrganist Thanks for clarification 👍.

  • @marcofacchiano468
    @marcofacchiano4682 жыл бұрын

    I grew up not too far from the watch Factory and some of the contamination was dumped in other neighborhoods in West Orange and Montclair

  • @darksepheroth4627
    @darksepheroth46272 жыл бұрын

    Oh boy, another radium girls video. It's not like I've seen 30 videos about this already.

  • @n7565j
    @n7565j2 жыл бұрын

    My first watch had a radium dial, wish I still had it... I remember back in the 70's, gov men came to our small town in Fl and went through the second hand stores along with old hardware stores looking for old a/c dials and guages which had radium dials. Seems like an eternity ago...

  • @freetolook3727
    @freetolook37272 жыл бұрын

    I had one of those Westclox clocks by my bed looking at the numbers and clock hands light up after the light was turned off. That was the 1960's...little did we know!😂

  • @CarsandCats

    @CarsandCats

    2 жыл бұрын

    I had one too and it got its glow from phosphorous which is harmless. I have seen glowing moss before that is rich in phosphorous. It's pretty neat.

  • @gabeo488
    @gabeo4882 жыл бұрын

    Those ladies are heroes, thanks for making this vid

  • @mariebelladonna437
    @mariebelladonna4379 ай бұрын

    Not to diminish anything about the message of this video, or the plight of all those poor women, but something else struck me about what Ryan said. He's right, $40,000 WAS sensational back then, for absolute sure (though it DEFINITELY wasn't worth what those victims had to go through). But honestly, depending on where you live ofc, $40,000 isn't terrible even today. It's far from rich. In fact, it's not even considered middle class, in the US. But it is lower middle class, which encompasses yearly earnings from $28,008 to $55,00 per year. And certainly it's a lot more than a whole lot of people make. Myself included. Think about that. Kinda sad, isn't it? In fact, every single part of what I just wrote is depressing. I hate this world sometimes...

  • @AF-gg3ce
    @AF-gg3ce2 жыл бұрын

    look into Colonia Highschool in NJ, they are dealing with it now!

  • @nomore-constipation
    @nomore-constipation2 жыл бұрын

    As a child I remember being fascinated by the glow in the dark clocks and anything else we had that used it. I remember having glow in the dark marbles. We used to try and put them on our face and walk around (like holding it balanced in your eyes and mouth.. I shutter to think we actually put these marbles in our mouths just as a joke at times.

  • @moonwalkerangel7008

    @moonwalkerangel7008

    2 жыл бұрын

    Depends when they were manufactured. Prior to 1968, they would have had Radium, after 1968 the Radium was removed but I still would not recommend the practice as the compound would make you sick and the marbles would have been a choking hazard.

  • @nomore-constipation

    @nomore-constipation

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@moonwalkerangel7008 I was too stupid as a child to know how destructible I truly was. Considering how I thought I was indestructible and kept being influenced by Evil Knivel types of things. Hell Star Wars made us think we were all Jedi masters and we all picked up anything that looked like a sword to fight with your friends in the playground. Trust me when I say that we absolutely found out putting marbles in your mouth wasn't a thing. Those with more siblings or adults around usually lived. As opposed to the poor lone kid trying this out by themselves. Lol I think back to those few moments I know God was protecting me because I should have been deaf, limbless or outright dead by all the stupid crap we did as kids. Lol What doesn't kill us makes us stronger right? 😉

  • @richardnelson64
    @richardnelson642 жыл бұрын

    Interesting story thanks man ❗❗👍👍👍☮️✌️👌

  • @richarddouglas1712

    @richarddouglas1712

    2 жыл бұрын

    Freehold???

  • @richardnelson64

    @richardnelson64

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@richarddouglas1712 ????

  • @richarddouglas1712

    @richarddouglas1712

    2 жыл бұрын

    Yes!!!

  • @ColeCole7654
    @ColeCole76542 жыл бұрын

    Where did that fill go? Toxic fill is cheap and lurking under seemingly innocent structures while poisoning its occupants.

  • @BiteThatApple
    @BiteThatApple2 жыл бұрын

    I can't put my finder on it, but what was the background music used for 6:20 that I've heard before.

  • @nunnaurbiznez8815
    @nunnaurbiznez88152 жыл бұрын

    There is a really good movie about this on Netflix called Radium Girls. Its really sad.

  • @Gma_Alma-Marie
    @Gma_Alma-Marie2 жыл бұрын

    They should’ve spoonfed it to those guilty for poisoning those women and other workers.

  • @Wv8675
    @Wv86752 жыл бұрын

    Very sad it's not just these women they put that stuff in so many products the list goes on and on

  • @jwrappuhn71
    @jwrappuhn712 жыл бұрын

    Excellent vid.

  • @billfeld5883
    @billfeld58832 жыл бұрын

    I had a couple of those old watches!!! 2022

  • @DeadBaron
    @DeadBaron2 жыл бұрын

    I think I remember playing with radium clocks and a watch when I was a kid, they glowed bright and I could see the weird thick paint. Hmm

  • @nigell7299
    @nigell72992 жыл бұрын

    Grew up and still live in nearby East Orange I drive by there often never knew the history of that location they built a soccer field there

  • @hh7407
    @hh74072 жыл бұрын

    When were radium dials outlawed on wrist watches? What year? I am just trying to figure out what military soldiers were exposed.

  • @fabricdragon

    @fabricdragon

    2 жыл бұрын

    as a note: the amount of radiation you would be exposed to by your watch (through glass and metal) even if you wore your watch 24/7 was not very dangerous. ingesting the radiun blend, and having it in skin and etc contact directly was much much more dangerous, especially as the material bonds to calcium in bones unless soliders licked their watches it wasnt the same kind of thing

  • @828enigma6

    @828enigma6

    2 жыл бұрын

    Going to guess in the fifties. They went to tritium, which is much less radioactive but more expensive and has a half life of around 10 years.

  • @zach1810
    @zach18102 жыл бұрын

    I am certain that NJ to this day still has radioactive sites still uncleaned

  • @campkohler9131
    @campkohler9131 Жыл бұрын

    At 17:00 what is the word he says that sounds like “high nods?.

  • @whyjnot420
    @whyjnot4202 жыл бұрын

    Well, that explains New Jersey, now how about Bridgeport? If we here in Connecticut have 2 things we need to apologize for, its Bridgeport and George W. Bush.

  • @anonymousjohn386

    @anonymousjohn386

    2 жыл бұрын

    You've got a helluva lot more than that to apologize for.

  • @whyjnot420

    @whyjnot420

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@anonymousjohn386 I can smell the projection from here. You should have that looked at, I hear its unhealthy.

  • @bravocharlie639

    @bravocharlie639

    2 жыл бұрын

    Actually, Comnecticut Senator Prescott Bush may have been the reason the world ever heard of Richard Nixon. Bush DID finance the Nazi Party via Union Bank and Skull and Bones is poisonous to freedom. Vice Presidential Candidates either have little effect or they drag a Ticket down. Senator Joe "Wrecking Ball" Lieberman behaved as though he was well compensated for his sabotage. Otherwise, Connecticut can be rather nice.

  • @brycesweeney6792

    @brycesweeney6792

    2 жыл бұрын

    New Haven?

  • @whyjnot420

    @whyjnot420

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@brycesweeney6792 LALALALALALALALALA-icanthearyou-LALALALALALALALALALALALALALAL

  • @promiscuous5761
    @promiscuous57612 жыл бұрын

    Thank you.

  • @BaldwinBay
    @BaldwinBay2 жыл бұрын

    Union! Workers Union. United.

  • @TheFroschkind
    @TheFroschkind2 жыл бұрын

    Uranium fever has done and got me down Uranium fever is spreadin' all around...

  • @mikej.7723
    @mikej.77232 жыл бұрын

    Great vid. The ramifications down the line in genetics. God knows what else we use nowadays that aren't good for us.

  • @rakmanyt
    @rakmanyt2 жыл бұрын

    Why does NJ have the toxic waste dumps and California has most of the lawyers? NJ got first pick

  • @andywilliams1160
    @andywilliams11602 жыл бұрын

    A Waste Management Problem in New Jersey: Insert your Soprano's jokes below.

  • @FixIt1975

    @FixIt1975

    2 жыл бұрын

    The garbage truck scene was the best. "What you're telling me is bullshit!" Hahaha!

  • @GardenerEarthGuy
    @GardenerEarthGuy2 жыл бұрын

    Had a glow in the dark wind up alarm clock and glow in the dark Mickey Mouse watch as a child. Wild story- never knew...

  • @chucklesthered2338
    @chucklesthered23382 жыл бұрын

    I wonder if the factory dumped radioactive materials in the Pinelands of N.J. There are areas of the Pinelands, if you live in N.J. you know where it is, that is highly radioactive for no apparent reason. It always made me wonder how the Pinelands made of nothing but pine trees and sand, could be so radioactive. Maybe the factory gives us a clue.

  • @alexkitner5356

    @alexkitner5356

    2 жыл бұрын

    I would be surprised if it was. At that time they had no problem with dumping basically anything into the Passaic, Hackensack and Hudson rivers or simply dumping into the ocean much closer to the source. Even in the late 30s and 40s they dumped radioactive waste wherever they wanted, case in point the superfund site in Middlesex where raw uranium ore was initially processed before being sent to the labs working on the atomic bomb during World War 2. I'd be curious if the Pinelands were contaminated by some of the early bog iron or glass production that was a large part of the area's economy or potentially more likely from dumping related to the armed forces bases in the Macguire, Dix, Lakehurst complex or from testing that might have taken place as part of the artillery training of theater level atomic weapons that might have taken place at the school on the base. To this day they have no issues with starting regular fires that are ignited from artillery training on the range at the MDL joint base when they know conditions are primed to cause wildfires. So imagine how little compunction they might have had half a century ago. I'd also be curious if there might be some natural sources in the mineral rich soils in the area. As I'm sure you know the Pinelands have a very unique makeup and history of ores, minerals and early American industry, so there could very well be some more direct cause while the waste from the northern half of the state was indiscriminately dumped into the environment across the Meadowlands, the tributaries of Newark Bay and the ocean itself. It just seems like a long way to go when there were much more convenient locations for waste disposal closer to the north part of NJ at a time when there was little to no regard for the environment or ecology. That said I am very curious where these places are that have these signatures specifically to look for more conclusive answers to why and how they got this way.

  • @welewisiii

    @welewisiii

    2 жыл бұрын

    like siba contaminated in toms river. or nuclear contamination from bomarc missile site that the military wiped any existence of it off the map. changed the water maps in the area and said it’s all clean now after burying the burn missile silo

  • @DTD110865

    @DTD110865

    2 жыл бұрын

    There are a lot of places in New Jersey that are unusually toxic, including radioactive.

  • @nunnaurbiznez8815
    @nunnaurbiznez88152 жыл бұрын

    Enforcement of labor laws is STILL minimal. I think it would work better if the CEOs and other supervisors were forced to work in and around the same conditions suffered by employees. I bet they would find the money to be safer in the workplace or eliminate the toxic products altogether.

  • @mtgpackrat7945
    @mtgpackrat79452 жыл бұрын

    Nope. I was born in New Jersey. I am still a two headed freak to this day because of it.

  • @coolbreezeoutdoors7177
    @coolbreezeoutdoors71772 жыл бұрын

    So what about the people that wore the watches? Did theycontract cancers also?

  • @dontparticipate240
    @dontparticipate2402 жыл бұрын

    Pretty notorious neighborhood. From hat making (possible mercury poisoning) to radium painting.

  • @imrytebeehyneu
    @imrytebeehyneu2 жыл бұрын

    But here's the thing: the watch that I got when I was a kid back in the early 80s is a Mickey Mouse watch, with its arms glowing at night. Is there any chance that I could be exposed to the radiation of radium?

  • @RobertWilliams-mk8pl
    @RobertWilliams-mk8pl2 жыл бұрын

    Oh God. My mother told me about this more than 50 years ago

  • @toddinfl
    @toddinfl2 жыл бұрын

    Not as toxic as these vaxines going around. Wait a coupla years and see how many die off cuz of them. Great vid!!!

  • @darthmaul216

    @darthmaul216

    2 жыл бұрын

    Which vaccine. The American one, the European one, the Russian one, the Chinese one? You should specify which one you are talking about

  • @toddinfl

    @toddinfl

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@darthmaul216 You're all dead.

  • @darthmaul216

    @darthmaul216

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@toddinfl but why? What’s the motive? Wouldn’t those people want to kill the people who didn’t follow them?

  • @johnmorykwas2343
    @johnmorykwas23432 жыл бұрын

    This is a tragic story for civilians, but there is no compensation for those in the military who were exposed to radioactive material, such as weapons. Asked why one half of a B-52s bomb bay did not carry additional nukes. Told the possibility of a weapon going critical due to rogue radiation from the other weapons. No badges here, nothing to be concerned of.

  • @user-ez9ex8hx6v
    @user-ez9ex8hx6v7 ай бұрын

    Yes watched video thank you heard