Next to the 'Radium Girls' statue, Rose Baima, who worked at Luminous Process, holds a photo of her and her co-workers during the 1940's, September 2, 2011.Ī life-size bronze statue, created by Piller’s father, with a woman holding a tulip in one hand and a paint brush in the other, now stands in front of the former location of Luminous Processes. Piller spent the last five years trying to raise money and awareness to build a permanent memorial, ensuring no one else forgets the story of the "Radium Girls." “I was reading through a book and it said no monuments have ever been raised for the "Radium Girls." And that really hit a nerve with me, because these women, as not a lot of people know, set radiation standards that we use still today,” she said. Now, in Ottawa, talking about the "Radium Girls" is no longer off-limits, thanks in part to the efforts of Piller. So I think when those things started to happen, attitudes started to change,” said Eschbach. “We had over a dozen radioactive sites, all of which are now cleaned up, but two, and we’re working on those. It demolished the existing Luminous Processes structure, and excavated the former location of Radium Dial, in addition to other sites across town. The town became the site of a costly “superfund” cleanup project of the United States Environmental Protection Agency in the 1980s. The dangers of radium no longer was isolated to those who worked in the Radium Dial plant, or its successor, Luminous Processes.Īfter Luminous Processes closed in 1978, the vacant building stood as a radioactive reminder of Ottawa’s long history with the chemical element. The chemical element found its way into the soil and groundwater, contaminating residential and commercial properties around town. "They thought it would give Ottawa a black eye, people might have the wrong impression, and they really kind of tried to sweep it under the rug.”Įschbach said the town’s entanglement with radium didn’t end when the case of the "Radium Girls" settled in court. “People didn’t want to talk about it too much," said Bob Eschbach, Ottawa’s mayor. It soon became a taboo topic just as many of the "Radium Girls" were dying from their exposure. It should have closed a chapter to an unjust episode in the history of the small town of Ottawa, Illinois.īut many in the town blamed the women for the loss of jobs during the Great Depression. The women eventually won, and received a modest settlement from the United States Radium Corporation, the parent company of Radium Dial.Īmong many different ways their case affected labor law in the U.S., it led to changes in workers compensation, and the creation of radiation safety standards. The case of the "Radium Girls," which also included workers from a similar plant in New Jersey, traveled all the way up the legal system, reaching the U.S. "This was something insidious that was going on inside their bodies and the employers convinced them that this was good for them.” “It was such a dramatic form of workplace injury because the workers didn’t know for years that they were injured," said Grossman. was hired as an attorney to represent one of seven women, dubbed “The Society of the Living Dead,” which started a legal battle in 1934 against the owners of Radium Dial. The town was against them for protesting,” said Leonard Grossman, Jr., whose father, Leonard Grossman, Sr. Many of the women developed cancerous tumors, honeycombed and fragile bones, and suffered painful amputations. “The women were instructed to lick point their brushes before they would paint on the clocks,” said Piller.īy 1925, the management at Radium Dial was aware of the toxic effects of the chemical element, but failed to inform their employees, or take precautions against further exposure. They painted the faces of watches and clocks with radium, which caused them to glow in the dark. Young women in their late teens and early twenties were recruited to work at the Radium Dial factory in Ottawa. The women sit at their desks where they painted the watch faces, at the Radium Dial plant in Ottawa, Illinois, 1924.
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