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An Augustana College student and filmmaker is determined to shed light on the stories of the Illinois radium girls, a group of female factory workers who ingested potentially deadly amounts of radium while working at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa in the 1920s and 1930s.
The filmmaker, Emma Watts, 22, began producing the short documentary in January. The film, with the working title "Voices from the Dark," focuses on the lives of the women, many of whom died of radium poisoning in years and decades after working at the factory. She seeks to document the story of the Ottawa radium girls beyond what the public already knows, she said.
"The suffering they endured is inhumane," she said. "These women did not deserve to die."
Watts, originally from Rock Falls, is conducting research for the film, including interviewing people with ties to the radium girls. The film will include testimonies from the radium girls' children, who saw how the radium poisoning impacted the women through their life and the effects on their family, Watts said. She is also working with the son of attorney Leonard Grossman, who represented the women when they sued Radium Dial in 1937.
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Watts, who will graduate from Augustana in May, plans to film the documentary this summer, and edit and prepare the film this fall. Watts said she will create the documentary slowly, because she seeks to do justice in telling the women's stories. She said she expects to complete the film at the end of spring 2026, and will submit the documentary to film festivals in Chicago.
"It's a tragic tale," she said. "It's hard to put into words."
Women at Radium Dial typically ingested radium with their mouths, after supervisors encouraged employees to point the brushes with their lips. When consumed at the mouth, radium deteriorates the jaw, causing skin and bone to malform and decay. The disease, called radium necrosis, had no treatment once symptoms took effect.
Many women ingested so much radium that their corpses are still radioactive today.
"Radium lived longer than these girls," Watts said. "These women suffered so much in life, and they still can't rest."
Watts has always sought to tell stories not widely known, she said. While many people know of the New Jersey radium girls, fewer people know of the Ottawa factory workers, she said.
Watts said even she only learned of the Ottawa radium girls in November, when she visited the LaSalle County Historical Museum in Utica. Watts had known of the New Jersey radium girls, but didn't know about the Ottawa radium girls. The 2018 film "Radium Girls" depicted the lives of radium girls who worked at factories in similar conditions in New Jersey.
Injustice had been committed against these women, Watts said. She began researching and planning the film soon after visiting the museum.
"These women had suffered and endured so much," Watts said."They've been waiting so long for their voices to be heard."
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