Radium was discovered by Marie Curie in 1898 and immediately became miraculous. It glowed in the dark. It seemed to have healing properties. It was put in everything - toothpaste, face cream, suppositories, water. During World War I, radium paint was developed for military equipment. Watch dials that glowed at night became essential for soldiers.

Painting watch dials required precision work. Young women - typically teenagers from working-class families - were hired to paint tiny numbers on dial faces. They were taught a technique called 'lip pointing': licking the brush to create a fine point, dipping it in radium paint, applying the paint, then licking the brush again. Each worker ingested radium dozens of times per day.

Within a few years, the workers began to get sick. Teeth loosened and fell out. Jaws developed painful sores that wouldn't heal. Bones spontaneously fractured. Some workers developed anemia. Others developed cancers that rotted through their faces.

The first death was in 1922: Mollie Maggia, who had worked at the U.S. Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey. Her jaw had to be removed. Her bones crumbled. She died at 24. The company claimed she died of syphilis - a lie they would repeat about other workers to avoid liability.

U.S. Radium Corporation knew radium was dangerous. Male employees who handled radium in larger quantities used protective equipment. But the dial painters were told the paint was harmless. Some managers even encouraged the women to paint their nails and teeth with radium for fun.

As workers sickened and died, the company denied any connection. They hired doctors who blamed the deaths on syphilis or other causes. They commissioned scientific studies designed to exonerate them. When workers filed for compensation, the company's lawyers delayed proceedings until the plaintiffs died.

In 1927, five former dial painters - Grace Fryer, Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub, and sisters Quinta McDonald and Albina Larice - filed suit against U.S. Radium Corporation. They became known as the 'Radium Girls.' All five were dying. Some couldn't raise their arms to take the oath.

The case attracted national attention. The company's tactics - blaming dead women for their own deaths, delaying justice until plaintiffs died - outraged the public. The case was settled out of court in 1928, with each woman receiving $10,000 plus medical expenses. It wasn't enough. But their fight had changed history.

The Radium Girls' lawsuit established the right of workers to sue employers for occupational illness. Their case led to new safety standards for handling radioactive materials. It influenced the development of OSHA and modern workplace safety law.

Many of the women died young - Grace Fryer at 34, Catherine Donohue at 35. Their bones remain radioactive to this day. But their courage exposed an industry's lies and forced reforms that have protected millions of workers since. The ghost girls who glowed in the dark lit a path that others still follow.