Antonios Theodosis - Super Blog 2: Radium Craze in Early Twentieth Century Los Angeles
The first source I used this week is a newspaper article from the Los Angeles Herald that dates back to 1909. The gist of the article in the newspaper is that radium was still fresh and its discovery was clouded with interest. A doctor essentially explains how they used the radioactive substance to “see through” an object in which pennies were placed. He alludes in the article that radium can be used to combat diseases in the medical field. My presumption is that the technique used to see through objects was some sort of new technique proposed for the x-ray. The newspaper article gives off a feeling of excitement of this “wonder” substance. It perfectly encapsulates the radium craze at its beginning.
file:///Users/antoniostheodosis/Downloads/Los%20Angeles%20Herald.pdf
The second source I found was yet another newspaper article from the Los Angeles Herald. This one dates to 1910 and reports on doctors using Radium to treat a patient at the hospital, however at first the doctors did not tell him what they were using on him. Once he found out it was radium he stole a small sample worth 120$ and apparently fled from the hospital. I find that this was important for two reasons, first because it shows the use of radium on a patient in the midst of the radium craze, and second it highlights just how expensive radium was at that time. It was a super hot commodity (literally and figuratively.)
file:///Users/antoniostheodosis/Downloads/Patient%20Steals%20Radium%20.pdf
The final newspaper article I found also comes from the Los Angeles Herald in 1910. This one essentially suggests that Radium is potentially dangerous and that people should be very cautious when handling it and that a substitute, “ThoRad-X” is said to be much safer. It states that experts should be the ones handling radium. Now, this to me was very interesting because it is probably the earliest account I could find from a Los Angeles based newspaper stating that Radium was potentially dangerous. Up to that point and well into the late 1920’s-1930’s there were advertisements stating that Radium was very healthy for the human body and could essentially work wonders. This article states the opposite, they were correct and way ahead of the public's understanding of such a dangerous substance being used in household items and used as treatments in hospitals.
file:///Users/antoniostheodosis/Downloads/Substitute%20for%20radium%20.pdf
Another interesting source I found was one that covered a contraption called “The Radium Emanator.” This device was created by a Los Angeles based company called “Radium Life inc.” The purpose of this device was essentially to irradiate water over night so by the morning time people within the household would have a nice “healthy dose” of radium infused water. This device is a perfect example of the public’s perception of radium in Los Angeles during this time period. The device was used in the late 1920’s and yet, as stated in my previous source, concerns from 1910 seemed to fall on deaf ears as contraptions like these were being made and sold to the people of Los Angeles.
https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quackcures/radiumemanator.htm
Along with this I also found a couple of images on the internet of advertisements in Los Angeles from the time period. One of them being an advertisement for the “Radium Sulphur Springs” in Los Angeles. The location shut down some time in the 1930’s and other than its address, I cannot find any other information on the place, apart from the advertisements from archived newspapers online. The advertisements speak for themselves really. Public perception of radium at the time was still infatuated with this deadly substance…
Here is another image of an advertisement I found online that dates back to 1916 in Los Angeles. It boasts about the healthy properties of radium:
https://lemuriablog.com/ar-radium-girls/
And finally I found a source that delves into the craze of the radium age itself and the effects both within the scientific community and outside of it. It provides some examples of the after effects of the craze and delves into the details of the early twentieth century enthusiasm of its initial discovery and uses. I find that this source provides a lot of background information that may make things a bit more clear.
http://acshist.scs.illinois.edu/awards/OPA%20Papers/2015-Lavine.pdf
These were the sources I found this week while researching. I plan to use a couple of the sources I find earlier in the quarter which revolve more around the harmful effects that radium has on the human body. I also would like to try and find some newspaper articles that talk about the effects radium had on the consumers of these radioactive products in Los Angeles.
Nice Job. I'm curious about your historical argument. From the sources, it looks like the focus might be on "radium culture" or, I like this term from Lavine's piece, "nuclear culture."
ReplyDeleteThank you professor, I was thinking about modeling my argument around "nuclear culture" essentially and how the craze essentially saw this toxic element become pushed into different facets of everyday life.
Delete