It's in the air, for you and me...

[amadoj0nes.livejournal.com]

Great Idea: A clock you can read in the dark!

Bad Idea: The damn clock face glows because it's f@!#$ng painted with RADIUM, which will give the customer 8 hours of close-range exposure to radioactivity every night....for years. This clock will give you cancer.


My folks, antique collectors, actually own one such clock..And as of the early 90's (the last time I saw it) it still glowed..50-60 years on..

Alot of different manufacturers made clocks with Radium-painted dials at the time. I remember hearing a story once, that they were discontinued after factory workers who had the job of painting the numbers started developing leukemia...After a while, they pegged down the cause. The workers were unwittingly licking their tips of their brushes while painting.


Oops...

Comments

[bolddeciever.livejournal.com]

For the most part, as far as I've heard, these didn't really have enough umph to be too dangerous to the end consumer. As you mention, though, they were hell on the labor.

[amadoj0nes.livejournal.com]

Heh.. I certainly hope not! We kept the "radioactive clock" (as it was known in our family) in the basement pantry.. Far enough away that any stray particles could just as well be nprmal day-to-day background radiation.

Nonetheless, there's probably more radioactivity on the face of one such clock than there is inside of a typical smoke detector these days... And even those carry warning stickers.

Ah, Californium... The most neglected of the radioactive elements.. :)

[otana.livejournal.com]

It wasn't "unwittingly" licking the brushes either, the workers did it to keep the brushes neat. And sometimes they would paint their teeth as a joke for their partners and friends. Yikes.

[janenx01.livejournal.com]

And then their jawbones would dissolve. It was horrific.

Radium Girls (http://www.amazon.com/Radium-Girls-Industrial-Health-1910-1935/dp/0807846406/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205299866&sr=8-1)

[amadoj0nes.livejournal.com]

lol ...man! OSHA, where art thou when thou'st wer' needed most! :)

(By 'unwittingly', I meant 'ignorant of the health effects'... Not as if they were sharpening the tips of their brushes subconsciously.)

[otana.livejournal.com]

Oh, well in that case never mind! ;)

[shawnndan.livejournal.com]

Radium dial watches and clocks. (http://www.roger-russell.com/jeffers/radiumdials.htm)

radio-activ-tyyyyyy....

[ilex011-reboot.livejournal.com]

nothing else. just wanted to give the kraftwerk props. :)

[darksomnabule.livejournal.com]

love your kraftwerk reference ;)

[twindowlicker.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was a great post! Cool vintage ad as well as a good back story about it. I actually learned something, heh, and put that book "Radium Girls" on my wish list for my next Amazon purchase! Thanks!

[behindthechalet.livejournal.com]

but if you duck and cover under your desk it protects you from the radiation.

[thatjamiegirl.livejournal.com]

I want to say my grandparents have one of these. Maybe. I don't know for sure, but I'll check.

[(Anonymous)]

lol... reminds me of the Lewis Black routine..

Quick! Hide under something flammable!

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

My Dad has a radium wrist watch- but he doesn't wear it now. I collect uranium glass, myself.......