The Tiniest Bit of the Powder

Dr. Mary Crowell

The Tiniest Bit of the Powder

Copyright ©2017 by Mary C Crowell
Lyrics posted by permission of the author

Albina and Molly
Ella and Grace
In Orange, New Jersey
You worked in the place-
The factory on Third Street
With beautiful paint.
You mixed it up daily
With not one complaint
And painted the trays full of dials.
The tiniest bit of the powder
Mixed with the water and gum,
You girls lipped your brushes to point them,
And happily chatted with chums.

Chorus:
Radium Girls
There are stories about you
Radium girls
Your beautiful glow
Radium Girls
Your bones were too fragile
Radium Girls
Your Dials in a row

Bridge:
Orange, New Jersey and
Ottawa, Illinois

Catherine and Charlotte and
Olive and Pearl
The Radium Dial
Where the luckiest of girls
Got jobs in the cleanest,
most healthful of work.
And playing with paint
Was your favorite perk
The 'ghost girls' would glow like their dials.
The tiniest bit of the powder
Would get in your clothes and your hair.
You could see it best in the darkness
How the dust would hang in the air.

Chorus

Sisters and cousins
All glowing at night
But in just a few years,
You weren't feeling alright.
The dentists and doctors
were worried, confused
The company's treasurers
flatly refused
To connect this with painting the dials.

The tiniest bit of the powder
Was safe as safe as could be,
But day after day of ingesting it
Some felt it first in the knees.

Bridge:
Molly had gotten a toothache
And then her condition got worse.
Her bones began aching then rotting
As if she were under a curse.

Chorus

After all they had said about radium
You girls were excited to be
Getting to work with that magic.
You glowed with delight we could see.

Chorus

Tag:
Radium Girls
Radium Girls
Radium Girls
Your dials in a row.