Month: March 2024

The Radium Water Craze: A Curious Chapter in Health and Marketing

Around the turn of the twentieth century, Marie and Pierre Curie’s discovery of radium sparked a frenzy of interest in its potential health benefits. Companies from various industries eagerly incorporated the radioactive element into their products, touting its supposed healing properties. Radium found its way into everyday consumer goods, including cosmetics, toothpaste, hair creams, over-the-counter medications, health restoratives, bottled water, and watch dials.

radium water bittke
Great Radium Spring Water (personal collection)

Adding to this surge, researchers detected natural radioactivity in springs across the United States. Physicians suggested that there was a health benefit to “taking the waters” at these springs, according to the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry. By the middle of the 1910s, thermal springs experienced a renaissance as places not merely to “take the waters” but to receive the benefits of radioactivity.1 However, most Americans lacked the time or means to visit spas. The solution? Bottling and shipping radioactive water.    

In 1914, seizing upon this trend, the Pine Crest Spring Water Company of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, rebranded itself as the Great Radium Spring Water Company. Under the direction of Fred M. Osteyee, the owner, the company offered bottled water and flavored drinks. The amount of radium in the product is unknown – it could have been a minuscule trace or a clever marketing ploy.2,3

As scientific research started shedding light on the hazards of radiation exposure, the once-thriving radium trend began to fade in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Great Radium Spring Water Company ceased its operations in 1931. (Of course, the Great Depression probably impacted business, too.) Concurrently, tragic cases like that of the “Radium Girls” – young factory workers suffering from radium poisoning after ingesting the luminous paint used on watch dials – cast a shadow over products.

Great Radium Spring Water advertisement
Great Radium Spring Water Advertisement (Berkshire Eagle, Aug 14, 1926)

Furthermore, stricter regulations emerged to combat misleading health claims associated with products. The pervasive advertisements promoting radium’s purported healing properties came under scrutiny because of this, prompting regulatory authorities to intervene and rein in the excesses of corporations that had capitalized on the radium craze.

Resting on a shelf in my office is a relic from this bygone era: a century-old aqua-blue bottle adorned with the Great Radium Spring Water Company logo. This artifact is a tangible link to a time when corporations eagerly promoted radium-infused products as miracle cures.

I sometimes incorporate this bottle into my lectures on the history of public health and use it to illustrate the complexities of consumer products during the emerging nuclear age. It is a reminder of an era when companies made promises of health and vitality but left behind a legacy of tragic consequences. Inspired by a recent viewing of the play Radium Girls, I retrieved the old bottle from the shelf to share its story on the blog.

Footnotes
  1. Matthew Lavine, “The Two Faces of Radium in Early American Nuclear Culture,” Bulletin for the History of Chemistry 39, no. 1 (2014): 56. ↩︎
  2. “Great Radium Spring Water Co. Bottles,” Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity, accessed March 18, 2024. ↩︎
  3. Robbybobby64, “Great Radium Spring Water Co.,” Antique Bottles, accessed March 18, 2024. ↩︎

Fighting for Equality on Route 40

A few months ago, I received a call from a producer working on the Audible docuseries Shadowball. This series delves into the history and experiences of Black athletes in the context of social justice and racial equality. Their interest was piqued by my 2013 research, which focused on the movement to segregate Route 40 in Cecil County and Delaware. While investigating this, I encountered the arrest of the civil rights activist Erosenna “Rose” Robinson, and they are profiling this talented athlete in one segment.

Rose Robinson civil rights protester arrested on Route 40 in Cecil County.
Rose Robinson of Philadelphia was taken to the Elkton magistrate’s court. (Cecil Whig Photo, Sept. 14, 1961)

Robinson gained recognition in the 1950s for her talent in track and field competitions. In 1958, she won the National Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) high jumping championship and joined the United States Track & Field Team. She then declined to compete with the U.S. Team in the Soviet Union despite the Cold War tensions. The athlete told Jet Magazine, “I don’t want anyone to think my athletics have political connotations. In other words, I don’t want to be used as a political pawn.”1

This public refusal was significant as Black athletes, musicians, and other notable figures were often used by the State Department to counter the image “Jim Crow cast on America” around the globe, Women’s Sports writes.2,3

Robinson’s activism with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) led her to the Route 40 campaign in September 1961. While traveling on the dual highway alongside fellow activist Wally and Juanita Nelson, they stopped at a diner in North East, MD. When the three Freedom Riders refused to leave the restaurant, the state police intervened and arrested them. Once booked into the Cecil County Jail, the “sit-downers” staged a hunger strike and refused to cooperate with the court.4

After fasting for several days, the sheriff sent Robinson and the Nelsons to Crownsville, the state psychiatric hospital for African Americans. However, the mental health clinician at Crownsville found them to be mentally sound, promptly returning the protestors to the Elkton Jail.5

Freedom Riders trial in Elkton after arrest on Route 40
A crowd gathered outside the courtroom of Magistrate Leonard Lockhart, but the defendants refused to leave their cells. (Morning News Photo, Sept. 12, 1961)

This unfolding situation gained attention from city dailies and the African American press, and the group came to be known as the “Elkton Three.” Shortly after, their $50 fines were suspended, and officials quietly released them.6,7 The movement to fully desegregate Route 40 gained momentum, and under pressure from President Kennedy, Maryland Governor Millard Tawes signed a public accommodation law in 1963 prohibiting discrimination in restaurants and hotels.8

The Audible docuseries segment focuses on Rose Robinson’s life of long-lasting activism and the Route 40 incident, which was one of many engagements for the exceptional athlete.

Footnotes

  1. Maria Lee, “The Pioneers: Two Black Women Whose Legacies of Sports Activism Live on,” Just Women’s Sports, Feb. 10, 2022 ↩︎
  2. Lee, “The Pioneers: Two Black Women Whose Legacies of Sports Activism Live on”. ↩︎
  3. Ryan Shepard, “Remember the Name: Rose Robinson Paved the Way for Athlete Activists”, Black Information Network, Apr 26, 2021. ↩︎
  4. Mike Dixon, “Freedom Riders Arrive on Route 40 in Northeastern MD as CORE Works to Integrate Route 40,” Window on Cecil County’s Past, August 1, 2013. ↩︎
  5. Dixon, “Freedom Riders on Route 40.” ↩︎
  6. James D. Williams, “One Way to Get In A Mental Hospital,” The Afro-American, September 30, 1961. ↩︎
  7. Rufus Wells, “Guilty of Being Colored,” Afro-American, September 30, 1961. ↩︎
  8. Maryland State Archives, “Executive Records, Governor J. Millard Tawes, 1959-1967,” Archives of Maryland Online. ↩︎