Hartman, Frank J, 1893-1986

Frank Janczak Hartman was a radium specialist and consultant, born August 25, 1893 in the Bridesburg neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Saint John Cantius School until the eighth grade, when he left school and went to work at Scientific Instrument Company. In 1917, when the United States entered World War I, he was recruited by the army to inspect luminescent dials. After the war, Hartman returned to Philadelphia and started selling radium products. He opened Radium Services at 19th and Chestnut Streets in 1919 and in 1934 became a sales agent for radium from the Eldorado Mining and Refining Company of Canada. Eldorado Mining and, after World War II, the Atomic Energy Commission, supplied him with radium and various isotopes.

The medical and financial value of radium was almost immediately apparent after its discovery at the turn of the twentieth century, but its control and proper disposal was not regulated. Reports of lost or stolen radium sparked financial and, eventually, public health concerns. High cost and public health concerns incented hospitals and other users to hire private individuals, known as “radium hounds” to recover the lost samples. By the late 1930s, Hartman, acutely aware of the dangers of radium, began work as a “radium hound,” searching for pieces lost by area hospitals and industry until his retirement in 1956. He was reportedly successful, recovering roughly 89% of the radium he set out to find.

Hartman died in 1986.

Bibliography

Lubanau, J.O. “Unwanted Radioactive Sources in the Public Domain: A Historical Perspective.” Radiation Protection Journal, Vol. 76, No. 2, February 1999.

From the guide to the Frank J. Hartman papers, 1904-1977, (College of Physicians Historical Medical Library)