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(Left) A Satirical Caricature of the Work of the “Radium Girls,” 1926 (Right) “Radium Girls” Painting the Dials of Bioluminescent Clocks, 1932.

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) American Weekly, February 28, 1926 (Right) Daily Herald Archives, January 1932

(Left) American Weekly was a “supplement” type publication added to various Sunday newspapers in the United States. In it were illustrations of all kinds, including caricatures. This one referred to the mortal danger female workers making watches with radium-coated hands were exposed to.

(Right) A photograph taken in the Ingersoll Watch and Clock Factory, a United States company specialized in watches and clocks. It shows women in an assembly line painting numbers and needles with radium in order to make them luminescent. Prolonged direct contact with radium had irreparable and sometimes deadly consequences for workers, leading to the “Radium Girls” scandal.