By Karol Kovalovich Weaver Cy.’s Radium Girls tells the story of a group of twentieth-century American working-class women who suffered from and died as a result of radium poisoning. The women worked in a watch factory painting the numbers on watch faces. Unaware of the dangers of the radioactive paint, the women prepped their brushes with their tongues. In addition, they used the paint as nail polish, applied it as makeup, and decorated their dresses with it. Ultimately, they developed radium poisoning, experiencing tooth loss, miscarriages, pain, the inability to walk, and death. Facing physical, emotional, and economic hardships, the… Read More