Radium Girls, Eben Byers and the Story of the song Headstrong

Coffee Donuts & F****d Up S**t

Eben Byers was a fancy pants golfer, a socialite and a ladies man. He was educated at Yale and most notably was the US Amateur Golf Champion of 1906. But when he fell from a train and hurt his arm, nothing seemed to ease his pain until a doctor introduced him to Radithor: Pure Sunshine in a Bottle. Which eventually lead to this headline in The Wall Street Journal - “The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off”

The Radium Girls were nicknamed the “Ghost Girls” because by the end of their shifts, they would glow in the dark. They were employed by the United States Radium Company, painting watch dials for WWI trench soldiers with a faintly glowing paint called Undark. The paint consisted of radium salts, zinc sulfide, and glue and was created by Dr. Sabin A. Von Sochocky.