Radium bromide Institute had four grams of radium total, which at the time was more than half the world supply. Countries all over the world set out to make as much radium as possible, a time consuming and expensive task. It was reported in "Science" magazine in 1919 that the United States had produced approximately 55 grams of radium since 1913, which was also more than half the radium produced in the world at the time. A principal source for radium is pitchblende, which holds a total of 257 mg of radium per ton of UO. Obviously with so little product recovered
Radium Girls contractor, U.S. Radium was a major supplier of radioluminescent watches to the military. Their plant in Orange, New Jersey, employed over one hundred workers, mainly women, to paint radium-lit watch faces and instruments, misleading them that it was safe. The U.S. Radium Corporation hired approximately 70 women to perform various tasks including handling radium, while the owners and the scientists familiar with the effects of radium carefully avoided any exposure to it themselves; chemists at the plant used lead screens, masks and tongs. U.S. Radium had distributed literature to the medical community describing the "injurious effects" of radium. In spite