#Radium dials series

Radioactivity was somewhat new to science, so its properties and dangers were not well understood but the radium’s slight blue-green glow and natural warmth indicated that it was clearly a fascinating material. The famous scientists Pierre and Marie Curie had provided him with some samples of their radium salt crystals. Hammer left Paris with a curious souvenir. In 1902, twenty years prior to Grace’s mysterious ailment, inventor William J. One dentist in particular took notice of the unusually high number of deteriorated jawbones among local women, and it took very little investigation to discover a common thread all of the women had been employed by the same watch-painting factory at one time or another.

#Radium dials series

Her jawbone was honeycombed with small holes, in a random pattern reminiscent of moth-eaten fabric.Īs a series of doctors attempted to solve Grace’s mysterious ailment, similar cases began to appear throughout her hometown of New Jersey. Using a primitive X-ray machine, the physician discovered serious bone decay, the likes of which he had never seen. Her troubles were compounded when her jaw became swollen and inflamed, so she sought the assistance of a doctor in diagnosing the inexplicable symptoms. However, McGivney recommended that collectors store these watches in lead-lined pouches.In 1922, a bank teller named Grace Fryer became concerned when her teeth began to loosen and fall out for no discernible reason. While all emitted some radioactivity, McGivney concluded that the exposure was not enough to harm the people who wear them. McGivney shared videos of readings she took with a Geiger counter from watches with radium dials. Are these watches dangerous to handle or wear? The short answer is no. Which brings us to the present day: since the watch industry used radium until well into the 1950s, many watches with radium dials survive. The “Radium Girls” churned out dials, knowing that the watches they painted would adorn the wrists of soldiers fighting “over there” in the First World War.īy the 1920s, the Radium Girls began to fall ill and die of wasting diseases that doctors attributed to their ingestion of the element, eventually filing lawsuits which led to the establishment of OSHA. They would dip their camelhair brushes into a solution of radium, and then moisten the tip of the brushes between their lips to give them a finer point. Starting in the 1910s, thousands of young women began working at factories devoted to producing watches with radium dials.

Also, since radium was viewed at the time to have medicinal benefits (even touted to cure arthritis and high blood pressure), its potential deleterious effects were ignored… to deadly effect. Radium, discovered by the Curies (who coined the term “radioactivity”) in the 1890s, was ideal for that use due to its radioluminescent properties. Radioluminescence, the process by which light is produced by bombarding a reactive material with ionizing radiation, was widely used as the demand for watches that were readable at night grew. But do these watches present any dangers to the collectors who wear them? In her lecture to the Horological Society of New York on November 7, 2017, HSNY's Director of Operations and Red Bar's COO Kathleen McGivney delved into the history of radium dials and answered those pressing questions. Many watch collectors own watches with radium dials - even seeking them out specifically.