United States Radium Corporation, Paint Application Building, 422 Alden Street, Orange, Essex County, NJ

Significance: The U.S. Radium Corporation site, including the surviving structural components dating to the period 1917-1926, were associated with nationally significant developments in health and safety standards, the ability of women reformers to secure protection for workers handling radioactive materials, and tools used to detect and measure radio-isotopes. Beginning in 1920j, radium dial painters at the plant began reporting health problems later associated with radium exposure and many died over the next decade. There were no publicly recognized health or safety problems identified or standards established for handling radioactive materials at this time. The dead woman, and others who survived, became known as the first known victims of industrial radium poisoning. The survivors subsequent efforts to seek redress, in alliance with the Consumer's League, played a major role in the establishment of legislative protection for workers against industrial diseases. Equally important, scientific investigation of these dial painters, and of other victims of radium poisoning, led to the establishment of health standards used to protect workers in radioactive environments and to the emergence of human radiobiology as a field of study. These investigations had military as well as civilian implications. Even before official standards of workplace radiation exposure were established after World War II, data from dial painters' cases were a major source in the health and safety codes developed for the wartime Manhattan Project. The paint application building is a contributory element to the historical significance of the U.S. Radium site.
Survey number: HAER NJ-121-A
Building/structure dates: 1917 Initial Construction