The Radium Girls:The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women (Harrowing Historical Nonfiction Bestseller About a Courageous Fight for Justice)

This book tells the story of the working class girls who painted radium dials in the early 20th century. While the story isn’t new, this work focuses on the girls lives and their long battle for justice. It is extremely well-written and will make you both very sad and extremely angry. I highly recommend this important and terrifying book. It will make you think twice about the ads for “healthy” medical and pharmaceutical products that pepper social media today.

This was an amazing read and listen. I had been eyeballing this book for several months after I heard of it's release on NPR. However, every time I'd go to look for it at Books-a-Million, it'd be $30; the Kindle e-book wasn't that much cheaper at $26. I was lucky that I happened to log into Amazon during the Kindle's 10th Anniversary Book Sale, and was able to snag the book for $2! I went ahead and later got the audible version, as well, so I could listen to it while my commute to and from work in the mornings. Kate Moore tales the true, historical account of the Radium Girls in a beautifully, hauntingly crafted narrative non-fiction. The Radium Girls were a group of women from the early 1900's who had begun working with luminescent paint, composed primarily of radium, in order to help with the war effort. They used this paint to coat hand and pocket watches, so that soldiers could tell the time despite whether or not it was dark. The public was enthralled with the idea of "glow in the dark" watches, and soon the company began manufacturing their products for public sale. The American Public was, to say the least, having a romance with 'radium', which was newly discovered at the time. The factory workers were encouraged to put the radium paint coated brushes in their mouth, in order to wet the brush without wasting as much of the product, in comparison to wiping the brush down or dipping it in water. The corporation swore that the radium was full of medicinal properties that the women were lucky to be exposed to, when handling the radium. Some even swore that it would make the women "more attractive". They were lying. The executives of these radium corporations knew that with every exposure to the radioactive paint, these women were signing their death warrants, unknowingly, in the name of capitalism and corporate production. The account of these women were horrifying, but was very well written. The non-fiction narrative read as well as many fiction books do, and had my attention from start to finish. I found it morbidly fascinating as a cancer patient, who has been exposed to several different radioactive isotopes in order to treat the disease. It was horrifying know that I had ingested material related to what these women had unknowingly been absorbing; Had to fight to keep myself from being a bit like a hypochondriac. What shocks me the most is the gall of these corporations, knowing full well that they were leading these women to a painful, slow death and having the audacity to lie publicly about it. Kate Moore's book is well worth the read, but just as a word of warning: when your curiosity begins getting the best of you, I'd not recommend you google images of 'jaw necrosis'. As for the audible narration of the text. I've read several complaints on here that the narrator repeatedly smacked her lips, breathed into the microphone, and slurred her words. I did not find this to be the case at all. I had no issues with the narrator whatsoever. While she was not the best narrator that I've ever listened to, Angela Brazil did a commendable job. I found her voice to be very pleasant, and that she enunciated her words perfectly clear. The only reason that she received a 4/5 rating from me was because I'm used to many narrators of non-fictional texts, striving to make each character recognizable different in sound. Brazil had generally one voice throughout the text. Nothing to be put off about, but not as creative as some audible narrators. I would absolutely recommend "Radium Girls" by Kate Moore, as well as the audible narration of the book, by Angelina Brazil.

A haunting and compelling story of the brave women who fought for justice against the deadly effects of radium exposures. This book blends historical details with personal stories, making the struggle feel immediate and real. It's both heartbreaking and inspiring, showing resilience, courage, and determination of women who challenged corporate negligence and changed labor laws forever. I couldn't put it down, and it left me reflecting on the cost of progress and the importance of standing up for what's right.

This is an extremely well written account of the lives of the women who helped to change working conditions with dangerous chemicals forever. The vile and atrocious actions of Radium Dial, what they did to these girls, how they tortured and murdered these girls, is repulsive and sickening. How this was allowed to happen for so many years is incomprehensible. Forced to pay their own medical bills for years, while their bodies were literally falling apart, many were driven into financial ruin. Not just the girls themselves, but also husbands and parents, who gave all they had to get treatment for the girls. Homes were lost to pay medical bills, while all along Radium Dial was telling them the paint was safe, while still working hundreds of girls dipping brushes into radium paint and into their mouths. "For almost six years, Radium Dial had known the women were radioactive. Yet the knowledge of the discoveries had been carefully concealed by the firm, who feared disruption of their business if the facts became known…the victims had not been informed of their condition, nor the cause, through fear of panic among the workers.” The lives of these girls were held with no more regard by the company than one would hold for the life of a single ant, all the mattered was the money that was being made for them. Dr Flinn was the doctor who had been examining and testing the girls for the company, who declared many times that the girls were perfectly healthy. "Dr. Flinn had been examining the girls: taking blood, reading their x-rays. He had been arranging medical treatment and writing to the women on the letter-headed paper of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. “[I] understood,” said Grace’s physician Dr. McCaffrey, who’d arranged her examination with Flinn, “that Dr. Flinn was an MD.” It turns out that Dr. Flinn's degree was in philosophy ... this was who Radium Dial had taking care of the girls for many months, if not years The absolute horror that these girls went through was exponentially increased later with physical exams. As per their settlement, the girls were first examined by the company doctor, the girls' own doctor, and a mutually agreed upon doctor all working together. The girls were positive for radium, but two of the doctors thought there may be fraud by the girls, so they decided to re-do all of the exams, in a hotel room so the girls could be nude. Only the company doctor, who did not believe radium poison existed, was present of the three appointed doctors. There were others in the room ... a doctor who was a close friend of the vice president of Radium Dial who took charge, another random doctor, and also the vice president himself, who "assisted". In a hotel room, with these poor girls nude, and these strange men were watching the examinations, pelvic exams included. "The girls perceived at once that this was not an impartial exam, but what recourse did they have to stop it? It was part of their settlement that they would agree to medical procedures. And so they were forced to strip as directed and went through the tests with the company men watching all they did closely." These women, no matter how severe their suffering, no matter how advanced their condition, never stopped fighting. "The researchers even went to the Cook County Hospital and brought back Charlotte Purcell’s amputated arm; they found it still in its formaldehyde crypt, saved through the decades due to its never-before-seen symptoms." "In 1963, perhaps at least partly in response to the research on the dial-painters, President Kennedy signed the international Limited Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited atomic tests above ground, underwater, and in outer space. Strontium-90, it had been determined, was too dangerous for humanity after all. The ban undoubtedly saved lives and, very possibly, the entire human race." What science learned from them has saved the lives of millions around the world, and is still saving people to this day ... that is their legacy. I'm very much looking forward to reading The Woman They Could Not Silence by this author.

Such a heartbreaking story. There were many moments when I was in complete shock and in tears when reading what these poor woman went through. This should definitely be on everyone's TBR!!

Kate Moore’s The Radium Girls is one of those books that makes you want to alternately hug the young women in its early pages and then throw the nearest hard object at the management offices of every radium company in the United States. The opening chapters are almost too sweet, with the young women, bright-eyed, innocent, and armed with nothing more than a steady hand and a dream of a steady paycheck, painting luminous dials as if they were painting their way into history. Spoiler: they were, just not in the way anyone had in mind. The image of girls smiling as they “lip-pointed” their brushes, swallowing poison while unknowingly lighting their way to tragedy, is gut-wrenching in a way that sticks to your ribs far longer than the glow-in-the-dark paint stuck to theirs. As the narrative shifts, so too does the tone, moving from naïve joy to the corporate equivalent of an ice bath. The businesses, confronted with the obvious truth that their workers were wasting away like candles left in a furnace, responded not with humanity or decency but with the kind of cold-hearted abdication of responsibility that would make even Ebenezer Scrooge raise an eyebrow. Every excuse, every denial, every instance of “surely it must be something else killing them” reads like a masterclass in how not to have a soul. The management, faced with suffering they had the power to alleviate, instead chose the noble route of circling wagons, covering tracks, and gaslighting the very people whose bones were literally crumbling. And yet, Moore’s writing never lets the women fade into victimhood. The bravery, tenacity, and sheer refusal to be silenced is the glowing core of the story, a reminder that sometimes justice doesn’t arrive neatly packaged but dragged in, kicking and screaming, by those who simply won’t quit. This book is infuriating, inspiring, heartbreaking, and oddly luminous; an unforgettable story of innocence lost and courage found, told with a sharpness that makes the injustice burn as brightly as the paint once did.

Psst! Hey. Hey, kid. You wanna get your feels *really* messed up? Here, read this! To start with, I'd like to say that this has been a subject of fascination for me since childhood. The first time I had heard about this was when I saw a documentary about it on the Discovery Channel. In fact, it might have been "Radium City", but it's been so long ago now, that I couldn't say if that was the exact one or not. Regardless, the subject completely spooked me. I was just a child of something between 6-8 years old. I was already terrified of radioactive materials anyway, but seeing that documentary gave me even more to be afraid of, especially considering we had clocks with glowing dials and numbers, and I had no way to know they weren't painted with radium, particularly because most of those clocks were quite old and had been owned by my grandparents for decades, and possibly had been owned by my great-grandparents. The potential that they had radium dials was very possible. I saw this book and remembered the fear I felt watching the second hand on that old clock in the living room ticking away the minutes. And to know that real women had become so deathly ill from painting those things made everything so much more horrific. This author has put together a really awesome piece of work about this subject. Not only does she talk about the consequences of exposure to radium, but she really brings the women to life and gets us used to them. I felt like I knew these poor women, and I often found myself crying because of their pain. Another thing about this book is that it shows us how very much our society hasn't changed. We have a few more laws in place for protection, but corporations are willing to outright lie in order to keep business running as usual. Anything for a dollar, and the people working on the bottom be damned! Reminds me of some of the more major corporations in the US and how they have obviously very little or no concern whatsoever for their lower-level employees. Everyone is replaceable. Who cares what happens? Who cares if they become so sick they turn into the living dead? Just as long as they make their profits, it doesn't matter. Yet another thing on top of that is how this wasn't the first time in our history that we thought a substance was safe, even good for our health, but then it turned out to be downright deadly. It makes me wonder what things we're using or consuming right now that will, eventually, be shown to be poisonous, but we had been told they were good for our health. I don't usually grant any book a 5 star rating, but because of how well written this one is, and how much the author made me care about what happened to the Radium Girls and how close I felt she brought me to them, I'm giving the full 5, because I do think this book deserves it.

Absolutely amazing true story of women, mostly young girls who had their whole lives ahead of them. However, they worked with a radium compound to paint luminous dials unknowing that radium was a toxic poison. They became deathly ill, yet their employer continued to tell the women the environment and the paint is safe for them to work with. A sad story yet uplifting as well.

Es un libro grande, pero ameno, aunque es una investigación periodística me pareció muy bien escrito. Una historia real triste

Als die "Radium Girls" ihre tägliche Ration mit radiumhältiger Leuchtfarbe bemalter Armbanduhren herstellten, gab es in Amerika noch kaum einen gesetzlichen Schutz für Arbeitnehmer, die an berufsbedingten Leiden erkrankten. Niemand kümmerte sich darum, als den Frauen die Zähne ausfielen, die Kieferknochen bröckelten, Mund, Zunge und Schlund von Geschwüren zerfressen wurden, ihre Beine ungleich lang wurden. Ärzte, die keine Ahnung hatten, was Radium wirklich bewirkte, schrieben alle möglichen Verlegenheitsdiagnosen in die Totenscheine. Anwälte, an die die Kranken sich wandten, zuckten die Achseln. Wie beweisen, dass das angeblich so gesunde, erfrischende, jungmachende radium, dieser "trinkbare Sonnenschein", dieses "Jugendelixier" nach Jahren seine teuflische Wirkung entfalten würde, indem es von innen heraus die Knochen zerstörten? Nicht einmal Marie Curie (die daran starb) glaubte daran. Der Konzern, bei dem die Frauen angestellt gewesen waren, kämpfte mit einer unglaublichen Brutalität und Menschenverachtung um jeden Fußbreit Boden, obwohl sogar der Begründer der Firma daran gestorben war. Alle juristischen Tricks, aller Zynismus, alle Gemeinheit wurde ins Feld geworfen, um die Klägerinnen hinzuhalten, bis sie von selber sterben würden. Ein Anwalt, der sich um sie annahm, warf das Handtuch; ließ sich vom Konzern einen Knebelvertrag abringen. Ein anderer war mutiger. Er gewann den Kampf gegen eine mächtige, politische einflussreiche Firma mit unbegrenzten finanziellen Möglichkeiten. Die "Ghost Girls", wie man sie wegen ihrer im Dunkeln sichtbaren grünlichen Aura nannte, erhielten ihr Recht - und die Gesetze zum Schutz der Arbeitnehmer wurden geändert.

This is the story of American women and girls who painted luminous dials with radium paint and their struggles to get compensation when their health was affected. I found the book hard to read at times, not because it's badly written, but because the story is harrowing. I gasped with horror at the sickness and injuries they suffered, felt angry at the heartlessness of the company managers and directors, and wept for the women who died. The epilogue describing changes to US law as a result of this issue, and what became of some of the "Radium Girls" was heartening, although the companies' attitudes to the environmental damage they'd caused is less so. The postscript was infuriating. Over all, I'm glad that I read this book, but it will be a while before I read it again. I need to get over the way it made me feel.

This is well-worth reading to grasp how women were employed to work making things containing radium. The dangers of radium and effects on the women are described. Their lives, friendships, struggles and strengths in trying to get help for radium-related sicknesses and suffering are poignantly described. This is a tale of valiant women who would not be silenced by corporate powers.

Nice