One repercussion from this chapter in history, was that the women getting sick eventually brought political pressure on the watch companies to end this practice of using radium on their products. I now wonder what kind of health hazard my dad subjected himself to being exposed to this radium – was it an “illuminating” experience?įinally, in the 1950’s, the health dangers of radium were universally accepted in the USA and it was phased out as a source of illumination for watches, although the practice did continue, to a lesser degree, through 1968 in watches and 1978 in clocks, and the Military continued its usage. I remember, as a young boy (I’m a fourth generation watchmaker), that my dad had a tiny metal box in his watch bench that contained radium used to reapply radium to hands or dials. This of course added another, later in history, health hazard within the repair industry. But eventually the base paint is broken down and destroyed by the effects of radiation from the radium, and had to be replaced by the watchmakers. This phenomenon would last for many years, sometimes up to 50 years, since the half life of radium is 1600 years. I guess this is where the saying goes: “When she enters the place, she really lights up the room.” Some even used it as a face makeup to surprise their friends and boyfriends. The story goes that many of them, not having a clue as to the hazards of radium, painted their teeth and nails with the paint. These same women started to get very sick, and many of them died. Unfortunately, at this point in history, our society was still ignorant to the health hazards that radioactive materials could cause. After a few strokes, the brushes lost their pointed shape and the girls couldn’t paint as accurately, so they wet the brush tip with their tongues several times for each dial. This was known as “tipping.” The women mixed up the glue and radium and applied it with a fine camel hair brush. The technique, which was actually taught by the instructors, was to lick the tip of the brush to get a fine painting tip and then paint the radium material onto the watch hands or dials. These factories usually hired young women to do the actual painting. The radium was painted on the watch hands and dials by workers in the watch factories. Radium was dissolved in water and then sold as a health tonic that claimed to increase your energy levels and cure diseases! In the early 1900’s, radium was initially considered to be a wondrous health elixir which cured a slew of health problems. This substance is usually a mixture of glue, a phosphorous material and radium. If you look at a vintage watch, prior to 1950, you can usually see a whitish or yellowish colored paint on the hands and on the numbers or digits on the dial. Who today would buy a car if it didn’t have air conditioning? Of course, all watch companies started to include this technological advancement on their watches. And like all new “technological” inventions, it became the rage for the fashion oriented watch owner. No more listening for the bells to toll out the hours to mark the evening time, and no more reliance on carriage clocks to chime out the hours and quarter hours at regular intervals. The Industrial Revolution had created another wonderment of science and the human race could chalk up another notch on its belt. To the wearer, what a conversation piece their watch became: outside at night or in a darkened theater the wearer could still tell time.
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