Radium Girls

Photos by Jeff and Heather Morris

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The Cast
(program order)

Joe Balding (Arthur Roeder)

Jozlyn Bew (Grace Fryer)

Crystal Bew (Mrs. Alma MacNeil, Mrs. Diane Roeder, Dr. Marie Curie, Customer, Board Member #3, Elderly Widow, Crowd Member)

Jeroch Carlson (Charlie Lee, Dr. Cecil Drinker, William Bailey, Frederick Flinn [Physiology Ph.D.], Male Shopper, Court, Lovesick Cowboy, Crowd Member)

James Colgan (Edward Markley, Dr. Von Sochocky, Store Owner, Venecine Salesman, Dr. Harrison Martland, Crowd Member)

Charlotte Crawford (Kathryn Schaub, Board Member #1, Shopgirl, Society Woman, Harriet Roeder)

Kevin Kunz (Tom Kreider, Jack Youngwood (Reporter), Raymond Berry, Dr. Joseph Knef [Dentist])

Samantha Pelham (Irene Rudolph, Miss Katherine Wiley, Board Member #2, Photographer, Mrs. Michaels)

Sandra Russell (Nancy Jane Harlan [Reporter], Clerk, Mrs. Anna Fryer, Crowd Member)

The dialpainters put radium paint on their faces to play a joke on their supervisor, Mrs. MacNeil.

Marie Curie speaks in Orange, NJ, on her way to Washington to receive a supply of radium worth $100,000 so she can continue her scientific work.

The dialpainters’ discussion of Amelia’s funeral is interrupted by an announcement: Mr. Roeder will replace Dr. Von Sochocky as president of the U.S. Radium Corporation.

Grace and Tom plan a life together.

Trouble at the factory: three dialpainters sick, one dead.

Radium water called “Radithor” is selling briskly as a cure-all.

Dialpainter Kathryn files a complaint with the Orange County Health Department.

The Roeders begin a daily regimen of drinking Radithor for their health.

With more dialpainters ill, a gloomy report from a Harvard industrial hygienist names radium at the plant as the source of the problem.

Dr. Flinn (an academic) pretends to examine Grace and says she is just suffering from malnutrition.

Grace meets Miss Wiley of the New Jersey Consumer’s League, and they agree to publicize the situation widely to obtain public support.

People on the street discuss the strange case of the radium girls.

Edward Markley, U.S. Radium attorney, complains to Raymond Berry, attorney for the dialpainters, about newspaper coverage of the lawsuit.

Publicity brings Grace and Kathryn mail from a quack medicine salesmen, a Christian Scientist, and a lonesome cowboy.

Dentist Knef, who has treated several of the girls who are losing teeth and parts of their jawbones, proposes the U.S. Radium Corporation pay him to convince the girls not to sue or to testify falsely about their condition in court if they do.

Although Roeder had submitted only one page of the Harvard report to the Department of Labor, Miss Wiley shows Attorney Berry the full report she has obtained from its co-author.

The press weighs in: “The company lied to the Department of Labor!”

When word comes that the head of the lab has died of severe anemia blamed on exposure to radium, the Roeders agree to throw away their case of Radithor.

Even Dr. Von Sochockey, the inventor of the radium paint now announces that radium is a dangerous substance.

Feeling she would only be a burden to Tom, Grace breaks off their engagement.

Vice President Charlie Lee warns Roeder not to settle with the dialpainters.

Grace refuses Markley’s minimal settlement offer: “I did what I was told . . . How do you get contributory negligence out of that?”

Roeder learns that Von Sochockey is suffering from radiation poisoning: “With the dialpainters, in the jaw it started. . . . With me, in the hands.”

At the preliminary hearing, the judge rules that the dialpainters have standing to sue.

President Lee announces a settlement with the girls but admits no liability.

Years later, Mr. Roeder is racked by regret, commenting about the dialpainters: “I cannot remember their faces. I never saw their faces.”

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