In the 1920s, working-class women were hired to paint radium onto glowing watch dials — and told to sharpen the brush with their lips. Dozens... Mae Keane, One Of The Last 'Radium Girls,' Dies At 107 ...

Through the first half of the 20th century in America, radium, a substance mined from the ground, was a source of fascination — it was used for everything from making watch dials glow in the dark, to ...

A century ago, glow-in-the-dark watches were an irresistible novelty. The dials, covered in a special luminous paint, shone all the time and didn’t require charging in sunlight. It looked like magic.

They painted glow-in-the-dark watch dials at the U.S. Radium factory in Orange. Then their teeth began to fall out. The 1920s story of the “Radium Girls" of New Jersey is coming to the big screen in ...

The town of Ottawa, Ill., is banding together to honor the memories of watch dial painters who were poisoned by a radium paint in the town during the 1920s and 1930s. Piller’s father, William, is a ...