Former Home of U.S. Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey
This is the location of the former U.S. Radium Corporation where many women, known now as "The Radium Girls,"worked painting luminescent paint on watch dials during WWII. It was a lucrative job for women at the time so many were reluctant to give it up even as information about the radiation poisoning began to surface. When a woman became ill, corporation doctors routinely diagnosed them with syphilis instead to keep families from coming forward.
The location is now a family-friendly park with memorials throughout telling the stories of the collective issues the women faced, along with individual memorials to the women that worked there. Many of the women are buried at nearby Rosedale Cemetery. Their plight was recorded in the book "The Radium Girls" by Kate Moore and made into a movie in 2018.
