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

In the early twentieth century one of the best jobs young girls and women in America could have involved something exciting and brand new: radium. Sparkling, glowing, and beautiful, radium was also, according to the companies that employed these young women, completely harmless. A century later the truth about radium and its assorted isotopes is all too well known. In The Radium Girls Kate Moore tells the story of these young women, seemingly so fortunate, who were poisoned by the jobs they felt so lucky to have.Radium was widely heralded as a wondrous new substance after it was first isolated by the Curies. It appeared to have an infinite number of uses, one of the first of which was to make the numbers on clocks and watches easier to see. Workers were needed to coat the dials with radium paint, and the best and most efficient workers were women and girls, some as young as 14 or 15. The work was pleasant and sociable: the women sat around tables painting, moistening the thin brushes in their mouths before they dipped them into the paint, chatting, eating, and drinking while they worked, sometimes taking extra paint home with them to practice with, sometimes painting their teeth, faces, hair, and clothing to make them sparkly. When they left the studio their clothing would be covered with radium dust, and would glow ghost-like in the night. The pay was good and the work was easy, but then some of the women started having strange pains in their mouths and bones. Their teeth would loosen and fall out and their jaws, legs, and ankles would develop permanent aches or even crumble.After some of the women died and more became ill the companies making large profits on radium rushed to dismiss any hint that the work was unsafe. Victims and their families sought relief and assistance, but found they were responsible for their own mounting medical bills. The federal, state, and local governments all disavowed any responsibility. Eventually publicity stemming from lawsuits filed by some of the victims (using their own scanty resources) focused enough attention on the problem that governments felt compelled to set safety standards and regulations.The Radium Girls is a horrifying read. The careless ways in which radium was handled, the indifference of the radium using industries and the governments involved to the safety of the women painters (in contrast to the men who worked to produce the radium, who were protected by lead shields), and the pain and suffering of the women themselves are appalling. The safety regulations and restrictions which were finally put into place hardly seem adequate, and the Epilogue and Postscript giving details of the women's later lives, as well as an account of another industry that made careless use of radium as late as the 1970s, are especially harrowing.This is a well written, meticulously research and documented, account of tragedies that never should have been. The radium girls' lives can't be returned to them, but thanks to Kate Moore we can remember, and learn, from their pain.

The fact that this subject is interesting is the only thing this book has going for it. The photos are interesting, but the book is horribly written. Grammar and punctuation errors, mixing up words (for example, using "desecrated" to mean "decimated"). The tone and style are awkward and clunky.

I just got through reading Radium Girls based the the true story of the girls and women employed to paint watch dials in the early twentieth century with an exciting and new product, radium. Radium sparkled, glowed, and was thought to be good for your health. It was heralded as the worlds newest wonder!! One of the uses was to make watches and clocks easier to see because the radium made the dial light up in the dark. Girls as young as 14 were recruited to join in on the exciting new job opportunity. Girls and young women sat in rows with trays of watch dials with a crucible of radium. They were taught to moisten thin brushes in their mouthes before they dipped them into the paint. They even ate at their work benches. The radium dust would cover the workers and as they walked home at night the girls would actually GLOW. Every girl wanted in on the work as it was good pay and radium was said to be good for your health. Little did they know that the work they were doing was eventually going to lead to their own demise.This book is excellent and gives amazing historical background pertaining to the inauguration of workers compensation, liability, and medical advancements. It is definitely a very emotional charged book. I would highly recommend this book.

This is one these books that will stay with you long after you finished reading it. The suffering, the indifference, the greed, the lies, the audacity... 90 years later it is still easy to imagine it happening over and over again.

One of the best books I have read in a long time! Telling the story of the Radium Girls from the standpoint of the girls/women who were victimized by corporate greed and their battle for their rights was wonderful. Kate Moore brought these brave women to light in a brilliant manner. I had trouble putting this book down and highly recommend it.

If only the women were shown this level of respect in their lifetimes. Their story shines from the pages and is horrifyingly relevant to today. We owe these ladies an enormous debt and it our duty to see it is repaid by never allowing it to be repeated.

This book is an amazing record of women involved in the craze of "the health benefits" and industrial uses of radium that occurred in the early 1920s, lasting well after WWII. They were employed in painting dials for watches and equipment with radium paint, without any knowledge of the dangers to which they were being exposed. As a result of management's subterfuge, they were to spend years suffering from the effect of radium poisoning before finally succumbing. This is the story of their fight for justice in the courts, the fight to stop any further needless suffering and ultimately convincing the courts that the companies should be held responsible. Kate Moore has done an amazing job of recreating their stories, with the assistance of family members, letters, diaries, medical reports, and case notes from the son of the attorney who handled their cases. Moores extensive research results in an amazing story, appalling as the facts may be. It truly is a great read!

What an amazing story this is! It is jaw-dropping to learn that radium was positioned as a health-giving tonic in early C20th USA with companies created to exploit this wonder element.Moore's story revolves around dial-painters, girls (some just teenagers) and women employed to paint the numbers on clocks, watches and other instruments using radium-infused luminous paint. Trained to shape the brushes by putting them in their mouths, they ingest quantities of radium, assured by the company that it'll put roses in their cheeks...It's frightening to see how these young women think it's glamorous to go home with their hands, faces and clothes glowing in the dark - and their innocence at eating lunch at the same tables at which they work with the radium paint. Only later, they start to get ill...Moore does a fine job of keeping the balance between her big story of corporate lies and cover-ups, and the intimate, personal histories of the 'radium girls' themselves. The accounts of their sufferings are hard-hitting, and we're incensed at the way they are dismissed by fat-cat company directors concerned with protecting their profits, an uncaring burgeoning radium industry, a largely ignorant medical profession and the red-tape of legal bureaucracy that is ill-fitted to deal with their cases.There are places where Moore's own emotions get the better of her and she inserts emotive asides or trembles barely on the right side of sentimentality - but these are fewer than some of the negative reviews make out and, honestly, this is such a gut-wrenching tale that I could understand and forgive.Most of all, this is utterly compelling reading - one of those books that I couldn't wait to get back to: a must-read.

In 1917, 'dial painting' - highlighting clock faces and military instruments with luminous radium paint - is seen as an enviable job for young women; well-paid, glamorous and even patriotic. Radium has been hailed as a health-giving wonder-drug, so there is no need for the dial-painters to take precautions against ingesting it - if anything, the women are told, it will improve their health. Thus, the workers are encouraged to moisten their radium-filled brushes with their lips, often dozens of times an hour, and they take pride in going home with the ghostly glow of radium about their persons.But, before long, the dial-painters start to experience ailments that just won't go away - bone decay, skin lesions, ulcerations that worsen with any attempt to treat them, confounding the doctors they consult until the common thread of radium is identified. So begins the women's struggle to have radium poisoning recognised as a condition, fighting against the might of the lucrative and powerful radium industry to receive compensation - and the radium industry will go to shocking lengths to cover up the dangers.Kate Moore's book is a detailed account of the Radium Girls' experience, told partly in a novelistic style, which I felt worked well - the women's characters are brought to life through small imagined details of daily life, against a backdrop of factual information drawn from contemporary material. Moore successfully explains the importance of the women's experience in the wider context of medical science, and attitudes towards nuclear research in the later 20th century, and I think does justice to their tenacity in fighting a legal battle despite many setbacks and unimaginable physical suffering, to create a legacy from which society has continued to benefit.It is a harrowing read; the illustrations showing the women are particularly sad - one can see all too clearly their frailty, but the story told is important and deserves a wide audience - it would make an excellent subject for a film. I was gripped from start to finish.

This felt like a very long book but it was both so fascinating and horrible it was difficult to stop reading. That these girls were so young - some as young as fourteen when they began working with radium with little idea of the consequences to their health and mislead by uncaring employer's and the terrible way they suffered for so many years with medical conditions and the extremely long fight for justice was quite a story both tragic and uplifting in the bravery shown by these girls who glowed steeped in radium in their very bones facing hostility from the establishment is an amazing saga. There were heroes and champions but not enough and the fight for justice took so long. I learned a lot about radium and science and bravery and history and legal machinations and it was a very long but very worthwhile read. If you have the stomach for it.

This book is a must-read! Let's get that out there first.The story is told in a way that just sucks you in and makes you feel a part of what unfolds in it's often brutal manner. The behaviour of certain companies will fuel the anger in you, but the reaction of certain doctors will make your blood boil with rage and disbelief. How ANY of this could happen in a modern (by 1920-30's standards) country like the USA, just filled me with horror, particularly as the evidence of harmful practices was so utterly overwhelming yet not only was nothing done to address it, but facts were actively covered up.I found myself sobbing hard during one chapter and had to put the book down and walk away in an effort to compose myself. It was that hard-hitting.The girls - and their families - went through unimaginable torture in their often short and painful lives, yet 'big business' cared not a jot. Vile behavior from some vile people.This is the book of the century, in my opinion, if only because it let this horrific event be told to everyone - and for only 99 pence? There is no excuse NOT to buy it.

this story should be way more famous. It is important for worker rights fights and in particular women right fights. The book itself it's not very well written but the author is not a writer so you have to be a bit patient. The book is well researched though and it chills you to the bones. The post scriptum is unnerving as it shows that history always repeat itself and we never learn but at least some small steps were performed after these shameful events. I was hoping for a far worst sentence for the guiltyAs the book is pretty long, maybe the story would reach more people (as it should) if it becomes a proper movie, let's see. I

I read this book in a couple of days and was hooked throughout. It’s well-researched and written and the story is certainly a very compelling one. I was always fascinated by Marie Curie as a teenager after doing a research project on her at school, soI found it especially interesting to read more about what happened with her most famous discovery, radium. The main characters in the book, the girls themselves, were portrayed brilliantly and sympathetically. You’d have to be stone-hearted to not be moved and inspired by them.The only reason I didn’t give 5 stars was I found the physical description of every girl felt a bit jarring as I read. I understand why it was done, but I still didn’t feel it necessary and found it pulled me out of an otherwise gripping narrative. I did get more or less used to it but it bothered me.I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with the slightest interest. It’s a thoroughly fascinating tale. Maybe it would open some eyes to the way firms act to protect their commercial interests - whilst they may be a little less brazen about it these days it’s still very much in practice.

This was a long and sometimes rambling read, but one I'm glad I persevered with. The story of corporate greed and carelessness, of a callous disregard for worker health, safety and wellbeing, of man's ability to disassociate from the effects his actions have on the lives of others. If how it is almost impossible for small voices to be heard.We live in a world where too many of the most powerful corporations prey without conscience on the rest of us in the name of profit, a world where a few brave and conscience driven individuals have the courage, drive and tenacity to try to fight back.Sugar and Wheat, Fossil fuels and Petrochemicals, Fertilizers and Pesticides, Armaments, Nuclear Power, Deforestation to name a very few - they affect and potentially damage all our lives, we are probably unaware of most of what is happening and so bombarded with media alarms and alerts that we become inert and blase.This book must be read and the wider lesson learned... We live in a much more dangerous world than we did 100 years ago and this book carries the warning.

A great book; the true stories of women who worked in factories putting the luminescent paint onto clocks and watches the process of which exposed the women and young girls to horrendous radium poisoning. The women were very poor so working in a well paid factory meant the owners were never short of employees. The author painted a picture of the horrific injuries the workers sustained - that made very sad reading. The girls campaigned tirelessly to get compensation and to show that radium caused their injuries; it was a long, long process but eventually their campaigning led to a new law regarding working with hazardous substances. I would recommend this book.

As someone who knows a lot about the luminising industry and the radioactive substances used to illuminate clock and guage dials I nearly wept over the way the USA based luminising Industries treated their workers. I led a Team working for the UK MOD Navy that de-luminised naval vessels before they went to scrap. Unfortunately, there is no NHS in the USA and luminising workers (predominantly young females) were forced to rely on expensive medical help supported by their parents which bankrupt many - whilst the medical profession rubbed their hands at the fat fees they were getting for providing useless remedies - shocking.

This book is well written but very hard hitting, these poor girls believed their jobs and lives were glamorous and appealing and full of wonder, little did they know they were being poisoned little by little.The reactions of the companies who employed them was deplorable and so horrible to read about, and so upsetting to read about what happened to these girls but still such an important story, we all could learn something from their stories and I am heartened to know that something came from their deaths - employment law that keeps employees safer!I would definately recommend this book but be ready to be shocked and stock up on tissues!

Fascinating and grim story, well researched with references given, and an easy read. Loses one star not for the breezy journalistic style, which is a matter of personal taste, but for its lack of scientific explanation and information. This is the story of the radium workers, how they were cynically exploited by a ruthless (and very wealthy) corporation, and how they fought for justice - not a popular science book - but neverthless a little more detail about radium itself and how it affects the body would have been helpful to this book. What information there is is frequently confusing - we are told, for example, about the widespread use of radium in tonics and other health products, then that real radium was not used at all in these products because it was too expensive - then that some-one did die of radium poisoning because of of his massive intake of radium tonic.

The fate of the young women who painted dials with radium paint is truly horrific. They endured years of suffering and painful deaths. The companies that employed were criminals. The girls fight for medical recognition and compensation for their injuries was unbearable to read about and the eventual awards derisory. Their courage and endurance was heroic . For everyone who takes health and safety law for granted, this is a recommended and necessary read.

Following the struggles of the Radium Girls felt a little voyeuristic.Their agony, their fear and their frustration was apparent and made for difficult reading.However it is their strength of spirit that shines through this book, not the radium.Those who added to their distress, shamelessly, time after time, are forgotten, but these women have earned their place in history. I raise my glass to them.

This is such a sad story but one which must be told. These ordinary young girls went to work each day painting watch dials never knowing the dangers they faced until it was too late. They then had an upward struggle against powerful people to obtain compensation and have their illnesses recognised as radium poisoning. It is a stark warning that new discoveries and inventions could have their dark side and thorough research is always advisable. Everyone should read this book.

Kate Moore constantly tells us what the girls look like. They're all stunningly beautiful apparently. Like that makes a difference to their awful fate. She even describes a woman who helps them as having features too small for her face! Why do I need to know that? In who's opinion? Her constant vacuous observations ruin a book with great potential.