Tim Frakes Productions Inc. Radium Dial Girls Statue,  Ottawa, Illinois
Channel: Tim Frakes
Date: 08/07/2019

The Radium Dial Girls were female factory workers beginning in the early 1920s, who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint at factories such as the Radium Dial Factory in Ottawa, Illinois. 

The women had been told the paint was harmless, and subsequently ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine point; some also painted their fingernails, face and teeth with the glowing substance. 

September 3, 2011 I covered the unveiling of a statue honoring the women on the former site of the factory.