What is a human life worth? A year’s wages? A sum that’s “better than nothing”? Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?
Grace Fryer was a real person who had to grapple with these questions as she battled her way through the court system in the 1920s in her quest to receive some compensation, some acknowledgement of wrongdoing from her previous employer, the U.S. Radium Corporation. What was her life worth? What amount of money would be worth taking a settlement from the company whose materials and practices left her in constant pain, crippled, and eventually dead?
It’s a heavy challenge, and one which the cast and I have taken seriously as we’ve worked to portray these very real people. Grace Fryer lived and breathed, as did Kathryn Schaub, Irene Rudolph, and Amelia Maggia. We wanted, in our telling, to do them and their stories justice. In delving deeper with the students while working on this show – we began to realize over and over just how relevant so many of the themes this story illuminates from the 1920s still are. At the end of the show a character says to another, “Science just wasn’t as advanced, the way it is now” for it seems that each generation still thinks it’s more advanced than the last, but repeats the same mistakes - just with a different item, them or topic. Our ignorance, sadly, feels unchanging.
The play Radium Girls is in itself a work of historical fiction. Although it is based on real events that occurred in and around Orange, New Jersey, between 1918 and 1928 with some very real people who suffered some very real consequences, a few of the characters and incidents portrayed have been shaped to serve the drama. Certain characters are entirely fictitious, and others are based on multiple individuals.
In1898, Marie Curie, with husband, Pierre, discovered a new element: radium. It was a wonder with magical and seemingly endless possibilities of medical cures and technological developments. It shrank cancer tumors. It eased the effects of rheumatism and arthritis. It built vitality. People literally glowed from using it. Yet, though they didn't know it, that was part of the problem. Yes, it killed bad things in our bodies – but indiscriminately. It also ate away healthy tissue and bones from the inside out. The Radium Girls often knew they were doomed by it as they looked in the mirror and saw their bones luminescent beneath their skin.
Even as early as 1902, scientists and doctors were presenting warnings about the possible effects. But in 1918, a paint mixed with radium, made watch faces glow enabling soldiers in WWI to coordinate the time and actions of war in the dark trenches. The watches saved lives. And young girls with small deft fingers made the best painters. The girls were proud of their work and were honored for it, as they walked around Orange, NJ with their dresses and faces sparkling from the residue of the paint.
But then, they began dying in horrifying and painful ways. The only common denominator for their problems was their employment as dial painters. But their companies, and the hired scientists of the companies, doctors and dentists, refused to acknowledge the lethal effects of radium. Until 1928 and the civil case that changed everything, for it was the first time a corporation settled with some of its employees for this kind of case. This civil case eventually led to Labor Laws and the ability for workers to seek compensation for job related injuries. It led to the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) thus saving hundreds of thousands of workers’ lives – maybe even yours or that of someone you love. Yet most of us have never heard their story. And yet we owe it to the “girls” to know and remember their stories, these ordinary young women caught in an extraordinary tragedy standing up for themselves, and as it turns out, for all of us.
I am so incredibly proud of this young cast who have embraced the Radium Girls’ story. Each student has worked tirelessly and passionately throughout the past eight weeks to bring this telling of their story to life. The themes of corporate greed - of “bottom lines” and the responsibility to boards, shareholders, and other workers counting on their jobs; the public caught up in media hype; and individuals losing their savings and lives coping alone with the negligence of others are, unfortunately, still timely. We CAN learn from history, IF we listen. Lest we fail to learn, lest we turn deaf ears, lest we forget, we give you Radium Girls.
