Is Netflix’s ‘Radium Girls’ True? What Happened to the Real Girls?

The Kissing Booth star Joey King is expanding her empire with Radium Girls, a 2018 drama now streaming on Netflix. The film had its world premiere at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, but due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it didn’t make it to the big screen until October 2020.

The delay has left viewers with quite an appetite for Radium Girls‘ Netflix premiere, and now, Joey King fans are flocking to the movie in droves — and they have questions about this riveting drama. Is Radium Girls based on a true story? What happened to the Radium Girls? Here’s everything you need to know about the real Radium Girls who inspired the movie!

IS RADIUM GIRLS BASED ON A TRUE STORY?

Unfortunately, the Radium Girls Netflix movie is based on a true story. The 2018 film tells the tragic story of a group of female factory workers in the 1920s who contracted radium poisoning from painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark paint. As viewers see in the movie, the real Radium Girls were instructed to wet their paintbrushes on their lips, an act that effectively poisoned them over time.

RADIUM GIRLS TRUE STORY: WHO WERE THE REAL RADIUM GIRLS?

Radium Girls centers on a small group of employees in an Orange, New Jersey plant, but the true story is far greater in scope. Though five women — Grace Fryer, Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub, and sisters Quinta McDonald and Albina Larice — were nicknamed the “Radium Girls” at the time of the 1928 lawsuit against U.S. Radium Corporation, the term now refers to the estimated 4,000 workers who were hired to pain watch faces with radium at three different facilities: one in Orange, New Jersey (the factory seen in the film), one in Ottawa, Illinois, and one in Waterbury, Connecticut.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RADIUM GIRLS?

As depicted in the film, the real Radium Girls were poisoned at their workplaces, and many began to suffer from a condition now known as radium jaw (a severe bone disease that causes the mandible and maxilla to erode), anemia, and bone fractures. Unfortunately, many of these factory workers died, but a few, including the five women from New Jersey, represented the cause in lawsuits against radium corporations. The New Jersey lawsuit was ultimately settled out of court in 1928, while a separate Illinois lawsuit against the Radium Dial Company earned the workers damages in 1938.

WHERE ARE THE RADIUM GIRLS BURIED?

The Radium Girls are buried across the country, but many lived out their final days in towns near the factories where they worked. According to a virtual cemetery site, Grace Fryer, Quinta McDonald, and Katherine Schaub are buried in New Jersey, while Catherine Wolfe Donohue, who was part of the Illinois lawsuit, is buried in Ottawa, Illinois.

HOW DID THE AMERICAN RADIUM LAWSUIT END?

Of the various radium-related lawsuits, the final one was Illinois factory workers’ suit against the Radium Dial Company. Beginning in 1927, employees asked management for compensation for medical and dental bills, but they were consistently rebuffed, and in 1937, five women finally found an attorney to represent their interests in court. In 1938, the Illinois Industrial Commission (IIC) ruled in the employees’ favor, but Radium Dial appealed, and the case eventually found its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In October 1939, the Supreme Court declined to hear Radium Dial’s appeal and upheld the lower court’s ruling. After eight lawsuits, Radium Dial was finally forced to pay the workers who were poisoned while working in their factory.

IS RADIUM STILL USED TODAY?

While radium does have a few modern-day uses, including in treating prostate cancer that has spread to bones, it is no longer used in luminous paint.

WHERE CAN I WATCH A RADIUM GIRLS DOCUMENTARY?

In 1987, Carole Langer released Radium City, a documentary about employees of the Ottawa, Illinois factory. Radium City is not available to stream on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime Video, but  Radium Girls fans looking for the doc can rent or purchase it on Vimeo.

Where to stream Radium Girls