A century ago, radium in scant quantities was thought to be healthful. People sipped it diluted in water and applied makeup made with it. They consumed milk and butter laced with it and brushed their ...

Editor's note, Jan. 15, 2015: Mae Keane was one of the last "radium girls," but not the last one. Please scroll down to the bottom of this page to see the full correction note. Before turning the page ...

Maybe the girls thought it was cool at first. They could walk through the night streets without worrying about streetlights guiding their way, because they were the light. People around town called ...

Like other young women working at the Waterbury (Conn.) Clock Co. in the 1920s, Mae Keane was taught a specific technique for applying paint to the numbers on wristwatch dials: Put the tip of the tiny ...

The discovery of radium, in 1898, by scientists Marie Skłodowska Curie and Pierre Curie quickly captured public imagination on a large scale basis. Newspapers in both Western Europe and the United ...