As the story goes, Demented Doris was once alone, a loner too. She found her way out of a small Iowan town and into Earl Essex’s watch shop, in busy Manhattan.

Soon, glowing faces passed in front of Doris’ own. A small assembly line of girls sat before a small assembly line of watch faces. The green paint glowed in five places: in jars, in drops on work counters, on finger tips, on fine horse hair brushes, and finally on the faces of watches.

Her and her workmates were also taught to secretly mix a little of the Radium paint into moisturizing lotion and sell it to women who couldn’t afford the very desirable, and frenchly expensive, Tho-Radia creme.

Essex’s owner, Earl Pfeiffer, started getting complaints that his watches weren’t glowing as brightly as his competitors. Earl discovered that his Radium Girls were using a light brush, and wondered where the extra Tungsten Green paint was going.

Ugly Earl of Eeek!, as the girls called him, decided to investigate.