Carter Roy

A dying woman lying on her couch in her modest house.

Lawyers, an arbitrator, her family, all crowded into her living room.

Catherine holding up pieces of her own jawbone that have fallen out.

On April 5th, 1938, the commission rules that

in catherine's favor she's awarded back pay medical expenses and an annual pension of 277 for the rest of her life the radium dial company fights back they appeal to the illinois courts and when that doesn't work they appeal to the u.s supreme court they lose every single time

Katherine Donohue dies on July 27th, 1938, the day after Radium Dial files yet another appeal.

She's 35 years old.

She never sees the final outcome.

Today, the sites of the old radium factories are EPA Superfund cleanup zones.

The ground is still contaminated.

Some of it may never be fully cleaned.

The half-life of radium is 1,600 years.

And the radium girls themselves, many of them are still glowing in their graves.

It cost them their lives.

But slowly, things change.

Radium dial painting doesn't disappear overnight.

It continues through World War II, but the lip-pointing stops and workers get protective equipment.

Eventually, radium gets replaced altogether.

Today, if I crack open this glow stick, I don't have to worry about it harming me.

So, what do we make of this story?