1. Sabin von Sochocky And George Willis founded US Radium. What was their partnership like? Were they friends? AFRAID I DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE PARTNERSHIP. MULLNER'S DEADLY GLOW BOOK COVERED IT IN A LITTLE MORE DETAIL, I THINK, FROM MEMORY... A CHEMIST WHO WORKED WITH THEM BOTH SAID VON SOCHOCKY HAD MET A 'KINDRED SOUL' IN WILLIS, WHICH SUGGESTS THEY WERE FAIRLY CLOSE OR AT LEAST SIMILAR CHARACTERS.
2. Before the lawsuit of girls, was Radiation cancer a compensable disease, or did the girls provoke it to become so? NO IT WAS NOT. SEE THE BIT IN THE BOOK ABOUT KATHERINE WILEY FIGHTING TO GET MORE DISEASES MADE COMPENSABLE, AND HOW SHE WAS DUPED INTO DRAFTING A LAW JUST FOR THE JAW NECROSES AND NOT THE FULL RANGE OF SYMPTOMS SUFFERED. I THINK IT WAS 1931 BEFORE 'RADIUM NECROSIS' WAS CHANGED TO 'RADIUM POISONING' IN THE LAW BOOKS OF NJ - THANKS BOTH TO THE GIRLS AND THE CONSUMERS LEAGUE. I ASSUME THE LATTER DEFINITION THEN INCLUDED RADIATION CANCER AS BY THAT STAGE IT WAS A KNOWN SYMPTOM OF RADIUM POISONING.
3. Were the Maggia sisters (Quinta and Albina), Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub, and Grace Fryer the only ones to receive compensation, or did other women suffering from the disease receive it along with them? IN NJ, MAE CUBBERLEY CANFIELD ALSO RECEIVED SOME COMPENSATION (AS DETAILED IN BOOK). AND THE CARLOUGH SISTERS AND HAZEL KUSER (ANOTHER SETTLEMENT, AS DESCRIBED BY GRACE FRYER IN BOOK). BUT THE 1935 RULING MEANT THE OTHER NJ WOMEN FILING SUIT LOST THEIR CASE AGAINST THE COMPANY AND RECEIVED NOTHING. THINGS DIFFERENT IN IL AGAIN, OBVIOUSLY.
4. Why were Sochocky and Willis compelled to paint dials with Undark before World War One, when it was actually needed? HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS NEEDED AND WANTED TO SEE IN THE DARK. THE PEACETIME BOOM POST-WAR SHOWED IT WASN'T JUST WARTIME WHEN GLOW IN THE DARK DIALS WERE REQUIRED. PEOPLE USED RADIUM PAINT EVEN BEFORE VON SOCHOCKY, E.G. TIFFANY'S JEWELLERY, BUT HE WAS THE FIRST PROPERLY TO COMMERCIALIZE ITS USE.
5. We know that the men working at USRC were given protection, but not the girls as they weren't using as much radium. What exactly did the men do that made protection a necessity? THEY WERE HANDLING MUCH LARGER AMOUNTS AND IT WAS KNOWN THAT A LARGE AMOUNT OF RADIUM WAS HUGELY DANGEROUS. THEY'D BE REFINING THE RADIUM, PROCESSING IT, EXTRACTING IT FROM ORE ETC.
1.) The men who worked in the same factories as the women were offered protection when working with radium, and the women were not, since it was believed the small quantities they were working with were harmless. However, even after several women had perished because of radium poisoning, they still didn’t offer women the protection the men had. Why did they seemingly allow the women to die, when they were the ones making the Corporation expand?
2.) According to your article on Buzzfeed, it says the girls worked hard to find an expert to look into their case, but several turned them down because they didn’t believe their story. However, many people began to investigate when the first male worker died. This is a strange way to discriminate, as normal sexism is thinking that women are incapable of something. Why does it seem like many people thought the women were capable of withstanding radium poisoning?
3.) In your book it seems that the doctors who saw the Radium Girls and made attempts to treat them saw their occupations as nothing more than a coincidence. How did they not realize that it was the radium that was killing them off? It made sense, since they all suffered from the same symptoms, such as loss of teeth and constant, aching muscles. Was it possible that the doctors refused to believe their ‘miracle radium’ had caused so many deaths?
4.) If several people had died from radium poisoning before the radium factories had opened up, why had the doctors which treated the girls write on their death certificate that they had died of illnesses like syphilis and diphtheria? If people had died before them, shouldn’t they have been able to recognize the symptoms of radium poisoning?
5.) While an abundance of the Radium Girls died because of radium poisoning, some survived. What was their life like following the horrible sickness they had been through? Since many of the girls had been diagnosed with STDS, were their reputations affected?