Radium Girl | Handmade History [relaxing] 

Even worse was the fact that during the trials, the company tried to delay the judgment because they knew that those girls didn’t have long left. So many of those girls agreed for a settlement that amounted to nothing for the company because they just couldn’t wait any longer.

Seems like this was hardly relegated to this particular company....since they were selling it in beauty products and irradiated water....the story seems sad enough without adding questionable details.... especially since the owner himself was suffering from the effects of radiation poisoning. You'd think he'd be the first of all people to throw on the lead apron. The nefarious deeds are obvious. No need to dogpile.

@@firegodessreiko it's not "questionable details" or "dogpiling". This kind of thing happened all the time back then. Heads of companies knew how dangerous their product or the process of making their product was, and then they would hire literal children to work on them. This isn't different, the materials are just worse.

The president, before he was fired because of a coup, had once gone into the painting room as one painter was doing the lip-point thing and told her to not do that. He was trained directly by the Curies and did not know about the the lip pointing.

This is why we have unions and workers rights now, and need to continue fighting for workers rights, otherwise we would have toddlers working as chimney sweeps again. They're already chipping at child labor rights, and it happens worldwide. Make sure to vote for your upcoming local elections!

I demand a series! 😍

Yes! I was thinking the same thing!

I really like the idea but this video has shattered my mood even though I already knew of the story.

history and doll art together in one place? YES

Oh yes! That's a great idea!

Worst part is, according to accounts of the longer-lasting women, they liked the paint and used it on themselves for intercourse appeal with their partners. They were having fun with the glowing aspect and didn't know that it wouldn't go well until it was too late and they were on the hospital beds.

Radium paint also left behind a legacy of contaminated buildings and places in the USA. Radium breaks down into Radon gas which can itself cause lung cancer too.

WOW!!

I agree! I was thinking to myself during the video “what a beautiful way to pay tribute to the radium girls” I love how at the end she points out how the victims literally couldn’t have done anything differently, but the corrupt people favoured profit over people’s lives

I initially thought it said wasteful tribute instead of tasteful and got so sad because it was such a beautiful tribute to them before I realized lol

@@mflor4544 Oh no! I get you, though. My brain also goes there a lot and I have to go back and reread things to make sure like “Wait, that doesn’t say what I think I said, right?” Rationally, I don’t think people want to be combative, but once you’ve encountered your first aggro-comments person, it sticks with you.

Or how children and animals were poisoned by lead paint (it was cheap and used everywhere - including farm aminal buildings) because lead in paint makes it sweet, so animals and children would lick it. You'll still find buildings/houses that have lead paint in them today because the paint is increadibly stable. The lead causes stunted growth, developmental delays, nerve and kidney damage - relatively quickly. Since the paint has been used since 4 BC, it obviously took a while to discover where the illnesses were coming from, though they were well aware of the dangers of lead in the 18th century. There were movements to ban it's use in homes in the 1920's, and many countries don't use it or ban domestic use, but due to it's cheapness and stability, it's still used industrially.

@@margaretkaraba8161 thank you for sharing, I actually didn't know how prevalent lead paint was and how long it's been in use, so thank you so much for telling me !! I'll definitely be looking further into this :)

The mercury was for treating and crafting the hats every day, and inhaling mercury fumes causes immense delirium over time as well as full on mania and emotional outbursts.

Don't forget the white phosphorus and what it did to the girls working in matchstick factories. The owners tried to cover up the phossy jaw by blaming typhus. That was the leading factor behind the matchgirls' strike in 1888. Etellan briefly mentioned it

Paris Green, lead, phosphorus we’re not the only toxic colour, Vermillon was once made of Cinnabar, Mercury. Not to mention Cobalt is also poisonous as well as Manganese blue is also harmful to the environment. Is there another colour/pigment that also killed.. Oh Uranium Dioxide was also used in Festiveware. Honestly, there were so many toxic pigments and paints throughout history.

For a moment, I thought you meant 'fiends' but now I know you meant 'friends'. Correct spelling saves lives!

@@dxmxrxsbxxckthxwxxdxlf3931 omg thanks lol

100% agree. I immediately also thought her & Lavender Dr. Would be good friends.

Lavender Physician would absolutely take her in and care for her.

My high school did too, when my sister went there. I think they played an assistant to Curie but I'm not sure.

Mine as well! It was quite fun to participate in it but sad that it's based off a true story

omg my highschool literally just finished radium girls!! i played dr knef n berry

Same my school did it last year. It was a great play

Same!

It seems that profit and greed always go hand in glove because humans never learn

Yeah, way better proportions, looks like you could add piercings much easier tio

yes!!!!! the nose is so pretty, i adore this sculpt so much

It made me so happy to see a doll with a face like mine!

@@heathercreates You must be quite pretty then.

@@uMaud Awww thanks, sweet person!

If she does the Agent Orange, she'll have to know it is a forest treatment but was used so much that it intentionally infected water and now thousands of Vietnamese children get mutated faces to close to inhuman results since it's a genetic-altering drug.

I would love to see her make a doll based on Tuberculosis

i third this idea

aside from learning history a general illness series would be neat for representation. kind of in the notes how there are barbies with wheelchairs or how they added glucose checkers on the sims 4. we could all use learning a bit about those and would be even cooler if she featured artists or just people with said illnesses/disabilities to tell the story/be interviewed. and give them a shoutout. im always waiting for a doll artist to finally do that because i dont want hecking Mattel to represent me because i dont care to be in their little rich company club, but i want actual real ppl to think of us and put work into making us feel heard and included and even shouting out some of us. i overall really enjoyed this podcast-esque video because its always more fun than getting a tutorial of doll making which i still do appreciate but i dont make dolls so its more entertaining and productive for me to hear a story or conversation :) (also i can focus more on the techniques if i have to figure out what shes doing rather thant quickly getting told it)

Agreed! The doll has so much emotion in her face, I really feel like she embodies the hopelessness of those poor girls Beautifully done, and a wonderful tribute

I'm really curious how a play of this story would look, there's been a couple of people who've mentioned it as a production- which is really interesting. I just wanted to mention that there's also a graphic novel called radium girls. The art is very stunning too and the story is told in a very thoughtful way. If you didn't know already and wanted another book style 🖤

GRAPHIC NOVEL?! I NEED TO READ IT! Thanks! As for radium girls as a play and what its like, it’s very good! I think it does a good job of telling the historical story in a very close to reality way as well as gives us main character to follow and root for to make it easier to tell as a story so you aren’t jumping around town to town to all these girls and instead we mention other factories and how the events of the play are happening everywhere but we mainly focus our characters in one plant in one town and a few girls making the whole thing easier to tell in play form. It’s honestly a very good and well done play. Something I love that they do is the main radium girls actually all die off as the play continues, they’ll gradually get sicker and sicker, makeup done to make them look pale and malnourished, they’ll get canes and limps, shaking, complaining about pains and then the character will die off, of course leading the others to wonder why so many radium girls are dying. About halfway through the main girl grace is having worsening foot and leg pains cause radium again causing her to wonder whats causing it. I think my absolute favorite scene is where grace is about to kind of put the pieces together on why so many radium girls are dying and what’s actually happening but she isn’t quite at that realization. She then goes to bed and has a nightmare. In this nightmare she wakes up and madame curie enters, wearing glow in the dark skull makeup as her character is dead at this point, and drops a tray of dials in front of grace, telling her it’s time for work. Madame curie continues to tell grace that she needs to work and keep painting dials and grace keeps replying telling madame curie that she cant work shes tired shes in pain she’s dying she simply cant. Then, grace’s friend Irene enters, they used to work together and were close but Irene died from the radium. Irene is also covered in the skull makeup. She also prompts grace to start her work and paint more dials. Grace’s cousin katherine who also died the same way enters covered in skull makeup. The three of them begin circling grace, telling her that everyone has to make sacrifices, it’s all for science, its for the war efforts, she needs to keep working. Grace protests, saying how she’s still young, she should be married with kids, she shouldn’t have to be working when she’s in such pain, it’s not fair and she “didn’t choose this.” Katherine then says “sure you did grace.” And picks up the little cup of radium paint from the tray and drinks it. Grace screams at her to stop since at this point she kinda knows that the paint is bad. Grace snatches the cup from katherine, and Katherine slowly turns to face down the audience, and just has her mouth wide open, letting a huge amount of blood pour out slowly all over her face snd dress. Irene says “now look what you’ve done grace, she’s bleeding all over the dials.” As she sobs, Grace says “i guess I shouldn’t have said anything..” and madame curie says “it’s no problem, after all, what’s one more dead dial painter?” The three exit the stage, leaving grace to lie back down and cry before being woken up. MASTERPIECE 💖