Fiestaware: Uranium in the Cupboard

Prior to the discovery of nuclear fission in the late 1930s, Uranium was largely a byproduct of Silver and Radium extraction, used mainly as a cheap colouring agent for glass and ceramic glazes. And perhaps the most famous commercial product to use uranium glaze was Fiestaware, a colourful and highly popular line of dinnerware introduced in 1936 by the Homer Laughlin China Company of Newell, West Virginia and still produced to this day.

Uranium Glass Video:    • Uranium Glass: From Bowls to Bombs  
Tritium Lights Video:    • Tritium "Beta" Lights: the Cool Glow of Ra...  

TIFO CANDU Video:    • CANDU: Canada’s Ingenious but Doomed Nucle...  
TIFO Radithor Video:    • The Cure for the Living Dead  
TIFO Radioactive Glow Video:    • Does Anything Radioactive Actually Glow Br...  
TIFO Depleted Uranium Shell Video:    • Why on Earth is Depleted Uranium Used for ...  
TIFO Radiation Exposure Video:    • How Much Radiation Can the Human Body Take...  

0:00 Introduction
0:55 Early Uses of Uranium
1:28 Pitchblende
2:25 Discovery of Uranium
3:13 Uranium Yellowcake
5:43 The Radium Boom
7:35 Fiestaware Origins
8:44 Fiestaware Red-Orange
9:03 Other Uranium Glazes
10:42 Plant Tuscan China
11:26 Discovery of Fission
12:25 Depleted Uranium
13:08 Later Fiestaware History
15:00 Radioactive Hazard
16:37 Outro

SOURCES

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https://web.archive.org/web/200302160...
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-...
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/fi...
https://www.replacements.com/china-tu...
https://gidodevyq.wordpress.com/2020/...
https://www.thepotteries.org/mark/p/p...
https://link.springer.com/article/10....
https://digitalfire.com/hazard/uraniu...
https://niche-canada.org/2022/05/24/r...
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ml0829/ml082...