The company recruited young women to work in its Ottawa plant. "They hired a lot of the same girls." The first such studios were open in New Jersey, Newark, Illinois, and in Ottawa, Canada. In the 1920s hundreds of young women worked at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois, putting tiny strokes of glowing paint on itty-bitty wristwatch dials. The Radium Dial company had come to Ottawa during the First World War and, after a few years, dial painters began to suffer cancers. He opened another company to produce radium clock dials. Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky and Dr. George S. Willis founded the company in 1917. When the Radium Dial Company moved to Ottawa in the ’20s to better serve its number one client, Westclox, they were welcomed with enthusiasm, particularly by the young, working class women in the town. Radium Dial went out of business.
He called it "Luminous Processes" and located it in Ottawa, just a "few blocks away" from Radium Dial, Halm says. Former Site of the Radium Dial Co. By the time this radium study was terminated in 1993, 3,161 radium dial painters had been identified and 1,575 of them had been seen and studied. During World War II, the company prepared luminous dials for military purposes. Their job consisted in painting the dials of watches with a radium based paint called Luna.
"They hired a lot of the same girls." Employees of both Radium Dial, and later Luminous Processes, used radium-containing, luminous (glow-in-the-dark) paints to coat the dials and faces of clocks, watches and other consumer products. Radium’s luminosity was part of its allure, and the dial painters soon became known as the "ghost girls" — because by the time they finished their shifts, they themselves would glow in the dark. Eventually all of the studies of the radium cases were centralized into one institution, the Center for Human Radiobiology at the Argonne National Laboratory. Waterbury Clock dial painters produced glowing watches for nearly ten years, and the company was one of the only three major players nationwide to satisfy the America’s hunger for 4 million radium-dial watches in 1920 alone. Mr. Kelly's father, Joseph A. Kelly Sr. owned the Radium Dial Company of Ottawa, Ill., a luminous-watch factory whose practices were blamed for the deaths of scores of young dial … The precise, delicate skill of painting clock dials with radium powder promised a much higher salary than most … * The tragic, true story of the "Radium girls," female factory employees for the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois, during the 1920s and 1930s inspired Melanie Marnich's play "These Shining Lives." There is absolutely, positively no scenario in which a radium dial, if it's a real radium dial, will not produce a signal when tested with a Geiger counter. He opened another company to produce radium clock dials. Radium Dial, Inc. began operations in Ottawa, Illinois, in the late 1910s. Radium Dial's president, Joseph Kelly, was ousted in 1934. Radium dials are watch, clock and other instrument dials painted with radioluminescent paint containing radium-226.Radium dial production peaked in the first decade of the 20th century as radiation poisoning was then unknown; subsequently, radium dials have largely been replaced by phosphorescent- or occasionally tritium-based light sources. They were paid a very handsome salary sometimes up to $18 per week. Radium Dial's president, Joseph Kelly, was ousted in 1934.
Luminous radium found a place in a dial-painting “studios” where glowing paint was applied to instrument gauges, clocks, and wristwatches for the USRC — United States Radium Company. It tells of the women who suffered the debilitating and fatal effects of radium poisoning from their jobs painting the faces of watches and clocks with luminous, radium-laced paint. They would apparently lick the brush before they would paint the numbers on the clock. Unfortunately, the glow came from radium, and the company encouraged the women to keep their brush tips sharp by licking them. The primary activity at the U.S. Radium Corporation was the extraction and purification of radium from carnotite
He called it "Luminous Processes" and located it in Ottawa, just a "few blocks away" from Radium Dial, Halm says. Statue of the Radium Girl. Ottawa, Illinois. Radium Dial went out of business.
October 2001; Revised, June 2003MC/4501-58 History "From 1917 to 1926, the U.S. Radium Corporation was located at the intersection of High and Alden Streets in Orange, New Jersey.