The corporation set up its factories in New Jersey and recruited dozens of young women to paint the watch dials. Radium would also receive government contracts during World War I to produce watches and airplane instruments for American soldiers. Advertisements for the product, which they called Undark, boasted of how it was all “made possible by the magic of radium!” U.S. Radium Corporation to manufacture wristwatches with radium-painted dials. His discovery would soon be used by the U.S. Hammer discovered that by mixing the radium with glue and zinc sulfide, he could make glow-in-the-dark paint. Hammer went to Paris and obtained a sample of radium salt crystals from the Curies. It was also widely believed that radium could prevent aging, and companies sold radium toothpaste, radium cosmetics, and even radium water.Īround this time, American inventor William J. Before long, radium was widely considered a “miracle” substance, sold in pharmacies for all kinds of ailments. After it was observed that radium could treat cancer, many people mistakenly thought it could also be used to treat other diseases as well. Radium was particularly intriguing because it glowed in the dark, and as Marie noted, “These gleamings seemed suspended in the darkness stirred us with ever-new emotion and enchantment” (Moore). In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie, two of the most prominent pioneers in researching radioactivity, discovered the element radium.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |