Wilbur ’s Reviews > The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women > Status Update

- 50 days before before final triumph of Catherine WWII was declared in Europe. Demand for radium would skyrocket again (190g of radium used in WWII vs 30g used in WWI)

- now with manhattan project safety standards were introduced for plutonium thank to the girls

- 1956 after public concern the AEC established a commission to study the effects of radiation and once again studied the girls for decades

- insurance refused to cover Radium dial so they only had a single lawyer on Feb 10 1938

- radium dial found guilty and forced to pay Cantherine Donahue on April 1938

- first radium case was filed in 1925 in NJ

- Radium dial appealed all the way up to supreme court but still ended up loosing. Grossman was able to generate a lot of publicity to help the case

- 1925 Jay Cook filed 2 lawsuits against radium dial. April 17 court ruled against women and went up to Supreme Court but they lost. Cook resigned as their lawyer

- Dec 1936 radium dial closed but they were found again in NY

- girls went to Chicago and found a new lawyer Leonard Grossman in July 1937

- new trial date was in Feb 1938

- Radium Dial knew of radium poising since atleast 1925 but they lied to employees and to the public with their ads

- Dr.Loffler of Ottawa agreed to test to the girls for radium which confirms orange girls were radioactive. They met with Chicago lawyer James Cook who brought suit against radium dial in summer of 1934

- being in a small town and in an economic downturn girls were shunned by a lot of people

- 1931 Martland figures out that radium is giving the girls sarcomas

- May 14 1931 Irene La Porte filed suit against USRC. She dies June 16th but her husband would fight for years and this is the case would be the one that led to judgement for Orange girls

- June 1928 Radium dial company chose to get ahead. The printed ads saying mesotherium was the cause and radium was safe. Only Ella cruse filed a lawsuit

- fall 1928 5 girls did first examination where USRC was being shady but 3 docs still agreed they were still radioactive

- Nov 1928 Von Sochocky dies

- Feb 1929 Ella cruse in Illinois kept postponing trial for to lawyers trouble in gathering data

- The trial went to court and it seems as if the judge was on the girls side

- Von Sochocky flipped and lied in court

- USRC lawyers were able to postpone until sept 1928. 5 months away

- berry got o other lawyers to switch with him in order to move up to May

- judge Clark a respected judge stepped in and served as mediator

- Berry was now to get the help of Walter Lippmann on the most influential journalists of the 20th century

- first Trial date was on Jan 12 1928

- oct 15 1927 they did up mollie magia to test her for radiation. They found she had not died of syphillis

- Dec 1927 Ella Eckett dies and the find a sarcoma in her shoulder

- Dr.Flinn was a major reason why no lawsuits were filed in Connecticut against the Waterbury Clock company. He was lying to the girls and helped the company settle outside of court

- upon investigation Berry found that Flinn was never given a medial license. He was pretending the be a doctor

- Ottawa 1926 radium dial invents and implements the glass pen. However the girls found it inefficient and rules weren’t really enforced so they went back to original brushes

- No Ottawa women had fallen ill up to this point

- girls were unaware of data and reports that had already been published in NY and NJ