If you love learning about the past, there might be no better place to be than the Nutmeg State. New England has so much preserved history, and it feels like practically every other Connecticut town has monuments, museums, and more devoted to the history of our great state. One of our favorite lesser-known historical tales in Connecticut is the tragic story of the radium girls of Waterbury, CT. This is such a sad story, and we’re glad that it’s starting to get the attention that it deserves. Check it out:

One of the primary industries in Connecticut in the early twentieth century was watch and clock-making.
Magicpiano/Wikimedia Commons
Pictured above is the Waterbury Clock Company factory, which served as the company's headquarters from 1873 to 1944. The building has since closed down, been subdivided, and is now used for a variety of industrial uses.
The Waterbury Clock Company was once one of the largest pocket watch manufacturers in the world.
Geni/Wikimedia Commons
Women were hired to work in the factories because the act of painting the watch hands and numbers onto the watches required small hands and quick movements.
Wikimedia Commons
In order to produce watches in the rapid, assembly-line fashion that was required, workers would moisten the paintbrushes in their mouths in order to get a fine point.

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Unfortunately, like some other products of the time period, the paints that were used contained radium.
Wikimedia Commons
We now know that radium is extremely radioactive and can be deadly, but at the time, this was not known.
grenadier/Wikimedia Commons
The factory workers suffered a variety of health ailments, particularly related to their mouths. One woman even had her jaw rot away from her skull.

The Waterbury Radium girls were not the only workers who were affected. There were also watchmakers in Illinois and New Jersey who worked in similar plants.
Perhaps the most famous victims of radiation poisoning were Pierre and Marie Curie, who discovered radium.
André Castaigne/WIkimedia Commons
Sadly, many of the factory workers died from their ailments. However, their story has made an impact. Many labor laws and increased workplace safety standards were passed in the years after their death.
Andy Bowman/Flickr
A number of songs and books have also been written about the Radium Girls, as they are now known. There's even a play (pictured above) documenting their story.

Have you ever heard of the Radium Girls of Connecticut? This is such a tragic story, but it’s also interesting. If you’re looking to explore Waterbury’s history and parks, why not make the Courtyard by Marriott Waterbury Downtown your home base?

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