United States Radium Corporation
|
Formerly called
|
Radium Luminous Material Corporation |
|---|---|
| Private | |
| Fate | Merger |
| Founded | 1914 in New York City, New York |
| Founders | Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky Dr. George S. Willis |
| Defunct | May 1970 |
| Headquarters | United States |
| Products | Glow-in-the-dark radioactive paint |
| Superfund site | |
| Geography | |
| City | Orange |
| County | Essex County |
| State | New Jersey |
| Information | |
| CERCLIS ID | NJD980654172 |
| Contaminants | Cadmium, Radium-228, radon, radionuclide, Thorium-230, Thorium-232, Uranium-234, Uranium-235, Uranium-238, Vanadium(V) oxide |
| Progress | |
| Listed | 1983 |
| Construction completed |
September 28, 2006 |
| List of Superfund sites | |
The United States Radium Corporation was a company, most notorious for its operations between the years 1917 to 1926 in Orange, New Jersey, in the United States that led to stronger worker protection laws. After initial success in developing a glow-in-the-dark radioactive paint, the company was subject to several lawsuits in the late 1920s in the wake of severe illnesses and deaths of workers (the Radium Girls) who had ingested radioactive material. The workers had been told that the paint was harmless. During World War I and World War II, the company produced luminous watches and gauges for the United States Army for use by soldiers.
U.S. Radium workers, especially women who painted the dials of watches and other instruments with luminous paint, suffered serious radioactive contamination. Lawyer Edward Markley was in charge of defending the company in these cases.
The company was founded in 1914 in New York City, by Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky and Dr. George S. Willis, as the Radium Luminous Material Corporation. The company produced uranium from carnotite ore and eventually moved into the business of producing radioluminescent paint, and then to the application of that paint. Over the next several years, it opened facilities in Newark, Jersey City, and Orange. In August 1921, von Sochocky was forced from the presidency, and the company was renamed the United States Radium Corporation. In Orange, where radium was extracted from 1917 to 1926, the U.S. Radium facility processed half a ton of ore per day. The ore was obtained from "Undark mines" in Paradox Valley, Colorado and in Utah.
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