The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

I'm a sucker for little chunks of history that mean something in a bigger context; it's probably why I'm addicted to all retellings of the Bletchley Park story. And that's how I feel about the Radium Girls – it's a story I already know from [b:The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York 7054123 The Poisoner's Handbook Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York Deborah Blum https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442933592s/7054123.jpg 7305202], and found fascinating there, but I find it to have endless depths and nuances, and so I jumped for a more in-depth exploration (and I would again.)With a backdrop of WWI, luminosity of watchfaces is a matter of life and death for soldiers. Fortunately, radioactive elements have recently been discovered, so women are paid to use radium to paint watch dials. Unfortunately, working with radium is a matter of life and death for the dialpainters...but no one seems to notice or care. It's a story about chemistry and the dual roles of chemical utility and chemical toxicity make in our lives. It's a story about feminism, and how women joined the workforce and were let in only around the edges. It's a story about our workplace rights that is still relevant in modern times – after all, it directly led to the development of OSHA. It's a story about medical mysteries and how doctors work through tracing disparate symptoms to a single underlying disease. It's a stunningly apropos tale of a society that does not care for the weak in its ranks and bankrupts them through their efforts to obtain medical care for societal-inflicted wounds.Kate Moore wanted more than that: she wanted a story that was really about the individual dialpainters, and to that end (according to the introduction, at least), she painstakingly interviews the families and friends of dozens of them. She wants them to be real people, rather than symbols. It's a deeply admirable goal. And it completely fell flat for me. By including what feels like at least 100 named dialpainters, I felt the impact was actually lessened, because I never got attached to any of them. Each has a tragic story, but it's really the same tragic story. So reading pages of “Jane Doe was a dialpainter. She loved her beautiful dress and her winning smile. She was dating John Doe. She was friends with other dialpainters, Sarah and Sally. They all lip-pointed, just like they were taught. Then her teeth starting falling out. They thought she had phosphorus jaw, but she didn't. Then she died. Mary Smith was a dialpainter...” got very (very, very) tedious. And then, honestly, I just got inured – once I knew every character introduced would die within 10 pages, I stopped caring who their friends were, or who they were dating.The latter parts of the book were better, especially the last part, where the book really focuses on a core group of painters from the Ottawa factor and the reader gets to know them and their personalities decently well. Even then, though, Moore tells us little about them except that they were “strong.” The women never came alive for me. Overall, I loved the topic. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I learned, and talking to people about radium and how we can reflect on that era. I respect what Moore was trying to do. On the other hand, I didn't actually enjoy reading this book. I spent 8 weeks reading this book. I usually read a book every 10 days, so that says a lot. I dreaded picking it up and treated it like a chore, especially the first half; the back half was better. This may be better as a physical book, where one can skim, but as an un-table-of-contented-eBook, it was pretty painful.Overall, 3.5 stars.

This was a very interesting topic but I found it very dense and hard to read at times. I'm someone who likes to read large chunks of a book at a time and I found myself only reading this for an hour or so before I was bored and wanted to read something else. I rarely if ever read non-fiction books so I'm sure that had something to do with it.

Hard to say I liked it as it was about the horrible sickness and death that many women experienced back in the 1920s and 1930s. But it was very informative. You can see parallels all around us.
Politicians continue to talk about ‘burdensome regulations' concerning things like mercury that we know are dangerous.
Back then, the popular and medical consensus was that radium cured many things and if you weren't sick it made you even better.
But, as always, once the company found out it was dangerous, they did everything possible to deny and lie about it.
Reading this book will remind you why we have an EPA, FDA, OSHA and CDC and why it's important that they be kept strong and independent.

this was difficult to read (particularly if you're squeamish) and there is a lot more editorializing and gratuitous (/occasionally speculative) detailing of the radium girls' personal lives, but ultimately this felt like a really important story about our collective short memory and the degree to which we associate “healthy corporation” with “healthy society”.

Powerful and unsettling in its telling of these girls' stories. The details of the tragedy are framed using the stories from the girls themselves, which made it a pleasure to read. This story is sad, but it led to many things that hopefully prevents tragedies like this today. Or, it should anyway. The postscript from 1978 was upsetting.

If you do not feel anger on behalf of these women about 187 times, I don't know what to tell you. If after reading this you are not clear on why any argument about businesses regulated themselves is a load of manure, I don't know what to tell you.

These were young women, many in there teams, who dreamed of happy lives, only to have those lives destroyed through casual disregard. And when they seek justice, after spending all their savings, and the savings of their families, their former employers use every dirty trick, including lying, to deny them that justice.

Compelling read that will make you angry and break your heart.

The Radium Girls is an historical account of the women who worked in the dial painting factories at the turn of the century.  Shortly after the discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie, the element was touted as a magical cure-all, partly due to it's effect on cancerous growths.  As such, it was considered at the very least harmless and at best beneficial to human health.  Radium's ability to glow also made it valued as a material to paint watch dials, so that they could easily be read in the dark.  Thus the radium dial industry sprung up, and the material was carefully applied to clock and watch faces by the young girls who employed a technique called lip pointing to ensure that the brushes were fine and accurate for painting.  Over time, however, the radium built up in the body of the girls, and radiation poisoning made them very, very sick.  This book focuses on the stories of several of these girls, and how they fought against the system to be properly compensated for the work hazards that destroyed their health and their lives.

This is definitely a sad book; the descriptions of the decaying girls are incredibly visceral.  You don't have to imagine the pain of the girls; you can almost feel it as their stories progress.  Many of the girls die, in horrible, painful ways.  There is tragedy contained in these pages, and in today's world I can understand why a reader may choose to actively avoid such an experience.  However, this book is also a very uplifting story as well.  It is about the little guy fighting against the man, about female empowerment, and about seeking justice and creating it where there is none.  Yes, there is ignorance, and pain, and death, but there is also a will to fight, to do the right thing, and to create accountability for those in power.  Although I knew the tragedy that was contained in the book's pages, I was unprepared for the fighting spirit of these factory workers and their families.  Their story was laid out in an engaging and incredibly thoughtful way.  The Radium Girls was absolutely compelling, and incredibly inspiring.  Although this book is about the injustices of the past, it gave me hope for the future, and I highly recommend this book to everyone.  

I've been thinking about what to say about this for a day and I still don't know. Nothing about this book is enjoyable. I'm still upset I read it. It has, without a doubt, made my life a tad bit worse. I don't particularly recommend it.

And yet...

It is a harrowing, terrible, gripping, terrible, gross, terrible, awful, compelling, terrible story that deserves to be told. I feel like reading this book is being a witness to the sheer horror that these women had to go through, and recognizing their sacrifice. I spent most of this book being horrified at the radium company that employed these women and the sheer audacity of their attempts to dismiss and silence them. There are a few central women in the story that are utterly remarkable, who display more resilience and fortitude than I ever will, and it is absolutely worth learning about them.

⭐⭐⭐
This book is good and worth reading. I enjoyed it but it felt a little lacking. I may recommend it to a certain audience. It gave me mixed feelings, possibly with potential it didn't quite live up to. It's a good experience, not amazing, but not bad.

These brave women's story is a powerful one. It is a story that definitely needs to be shared. This book took me through a range of emotions. From happiness to disgust. This is a story worth knowing about and these women deserve to be remembered.

With that being said I found the author's writing style to be a bit dry. Not enough so that it took away from the severity of the story but just enough that at times it made important things seem bland.

However, it was very informative.

First of all, this book did not read like your typical NF. Moore did a good job at keeping the book interesting and engaging for the reader. I'm really glad Moore briefly touched on how family was affected by the dial workers radioactivity as that was something I was questioning throughout half the book

I was thrilled to get the opportunity to talk with Katy Lynch of Sourcebooks while I was at BookExpo this year. She took the time to share lots of new books coming out from Sourcebooks. We talked a bit about my favorite genres, and I asked her which book she recommended for me the most. Katy didn't really hesitate; she put a copy of The Radium Girls in my hands.

With that kind of recommendation, Radium Girls became the first book I pulled from the 98 pounds of books I brought home from BookExpo. I'm so glad I did.

The Radium Girls is the story of young women, some as young as fourteen, who worked in factories during the 1920's and 1930's, painting the faces of watches. With radium. Oh yes, radium. To paint the tiny numbers, the girls had to put their paintbrushes in their mouths to make a fine point. All the while, the companies making huge profits from this work told the girls that the radium was harmless.

Kate Moore tells the stories of these girls and young women, as they move from happy employees making great money into women with terrifying health issues. It's a poignant and deeply moving book, and it is well told.

I highly recommend this book.

It's great that the author highlights the fates of women who would become the worst kind of involuntary pioneer: who had to suffer and die for people, lawmakers, corporations to start caring about a modicum of workplace safety and worker protection.

The writing itself starts smoothly and easy to follow, alas after a while gets repetitive and lengthy recounting every single minute event in detail and it seems a good editor could have shortened the book substantially.

Four stars for the subject, three for the writing.

A tragic and haunting yet inspiring account of the women who unknowingly sacrificed themselves for the sake of others. No one should ever have to suffer through what these girls did, especially not at the hands of a cooperation who prioritizes their own profit over human life. This is definitely one book that's going to remain with me.