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A Room Inside the United States Radium Corporation, date unknown

Black and white photograph depicting an industrial storage room. It is a large, disordered room clearly left abandoned. It is filled with metal barrels of unknown content.

Library of Congress, date unknown

The United States Radium Corporation was a company that produced radium and other radioactive materials in the early 20th century. It also produced the radioluminescent paint involved in the “Radium Girls” poisoning scandal. This photograph, taken long after the company shut down, shows their “radium crystallization lab.”

Montage of two images. On the left, a simple black and white caricature depicting workers painting radium on pocket watches. The paint pots are handed to them by skeletons placed around them, which they seem not to see. On the right, a black and white photograph of four women seated at a table, organized for assembly line work. The focus is on a woman in the foreground painting a clock face. In front of her on the table are several more clock faces to paint and assemble. In the background, three other women, not in focus, are seen with equally many clock faces on their portions of the table.

(Left) A satirical caricature of the work of the “Radium Girls,” 1926 (Right) “Radium Girls” painting the dials of bioluminescent clocks, 1932.