Death watches in 1920: the manipulator does not die and is disabled

In 1920, watchmaking in the US was a nightmare. Watches made can really be deadly.

Have you ever thought about wearing a watch only to make yourself in danger? This will happen, if your watch was built in the United States in the 1920s. These are watches that involve people from death to disability.

The real reason originated in 1898, when the Curies found radium - the radioactive element that helped them win two Nobel prizes. Radium proved extremely useful in many areas, quickly turning the early decades of the 20th century into an era of radioactivity.

Radium appears in every aspect of life.

But perhaps everyone knows that radium is actually a double-edged sword, when it harms our bodies at the cellular level. At the beginning, people did not know it, so when they realized, radium appeared in many aspects of life. From cosmetics, medicine, chemical products, to foods, drinking water is also added radioactive.

Among them, there are death watches .

During World War I, there was a corporation in the United States called Radium . The group opened a factory in New Jersey, in which many workers are young women who sit all day to paint their faces and watches.

The problem is that the paint they use contains radium.

Exposure to radium is harmful, but the way they work is even more harmful. To get the best, slender and beautiful paint, workers often sucked on the tip of the brush. They even sneaked using this ink to paint their nails, because there are rare ink types that are capable of glowing in the dark like that.

Many workers are young women who sit all day to paint their faces and watches.

The radioactive material is like that but gradually penetrates into the body of the patient. Disaster has occurred, when hundreds of people suffer from anemia, the bones dilute to the point of brittle fractures without a clear cause. Others suffer from gum bleeding, jaw necrosis, or weakness to death.

As in a report in 1938: "Charlotte Purcell, your left hand is lost forever because of poisoning. This is the best example of a disaster for workers who paint watches in a factory."

A watch painted with radium in 1930. Until now, the clock was still glowing.

Or the case of Millie Maggia in 1922. She was so radioactive that the person collapsed, and had to witness her own body become rotten. Even her entire jawbone seemed to leave completely.

Some victims were also exposed to radiation to their bones, leaving huge tumors. In return, they could glow in the night, weird enough to make children cry.

But the truth is more terrible, this disaster is also a testament to the reality of gender discrimination in the society.

Pre-employment female workers also questioned the safety of this type of paint. The answer they received was "yes, very safe", but the truth is that businesses at that time were fully aware of the harmful effects of radiation. Evidence is that male workers in the factory are protected by metal plates to avoid contamination, while women do not.

Many people are so radioactive that they can glow in the night, weird enough to make children cry.

The US Radium Group then completely denied responsibility, arguing that employees only wanted to extort money from the company. They even went so far as to try to bury the reputation of female workers, when they believed that their condition was caused by syphilis.

Brave women have struggled to claim their rights to work in a safe environment, while their condition has deteriorated.Their bones probably still glow today.

In 1928, Sabin Von Sochocky - one of the founders of the US Radium Group, died, because it was his invention of radium .

A group of female workers later filed a lawsuit against the group. The lawsuit persisted, and then when Wolfe Donohue's bedside application was issued in 1938, everything ended with a newly established safety law.