This episode of Bad Boss Detox honors the legacy of the Radium Girls—young women hired in the 1910s to paint luminous watch dials with radioactive paint, told it was safe, even healthy, to ingest. What followed was a devastating trail of illness, corporate denial, and one of the most heartbreaking workplace cover-ups in history.
We’ll explore how these women, many still in their teens, were gaslit by employers who prioritized profit over human life.
This isn’t just a history lesson. It’s a warning. Because the same patterns of denial, dismissal, and dehumanization still echo in toxic workplaces today.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Misogyny, sexual shaming, workplace abuse, radioactive poisoning, dental trauma, cancer, death
Sound effects provided by Uppbeat. Music provided by the Library of Congress.
