The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
Ratings147
Average rating4.2
I feel exactly the same about this book as I did about the author's book, The Woman They Could Not Silence - it's an incredible story and something I previously wasn't that aware of, but it was too long and slightly overwritten in the assumptions and descriptions.
Overall I'm glad I read it and will definitely look for future books from the author, but I know what I'm getting with her books now. Definitely ones to get on audio due to the length (for me at least).
Este libro habla sobre la cruel e injusta historia de las chicas de radio, mujeres jóvenes que trabajaban en compañías enormes pintando relojes con radio, un material nuevo en el mercado y muy de moda (altamente cancerigeno, sabemos ahora).
Esta historia es super triste, y me llenaba de rabia con cada capítulo, la forma en que estas empresas ocultaban la informacion sobre los peligros del trabajo, y mentían descaradamente a las chicas sobre su salud, para mantener su produccion a toda costa, asegurandoles que no tenían nada y que no había de que preocuparse.
Cuando en realidad todas tenían en su cuerpo rastros de radioactividad y comenzarían a desarrollar cancer y síntomas horribles, algunas morían de forma rapida y violenta, mientras otras sufrían por años y años hasta llegar a una muerte lenta y agonizante.
Una muestra más de como las grandes empresas solo se preocupan por el dinero, no les importan las vidas humanas, ni poner a la gente en riesgo, ni dudan en lavarse las manos, con tal de mantener sus capitales, lo peor es que, hasta el día de hoy vemos casos así, de trabajadores que pierden sus vidas, o padecen terribles enfermedades a causa de sus trabajos, y por mas que demanden o se den a conocer sus historias, la mayoría de las veces las empresas salen ganadoras.
This is a real hum dinger of a book and one of the most compelling non-fiction books I've read in some time. I gobbled down this book in less than three days and hated putting it down.
Not only have I been to Ottawa, IL, previous home of Radium Dial Corporation and later Luminous Processes, but my fiancée's grandmother and/or great-grandmother was a Radium Girl at one of those very plants. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any surviving written records about their stories. Also, one of the surviving relatives of an Ottawan Radium Girl featured in the book is related to my fiancée.
The tale of each Radium Girl is both beautiful and heartbreaking. At first, their jobs as radium dial painters is lit by glamour; Radium Girls' clothes and bodies glowed when they went out on the town at night. The author does a fantastic job of humanizing each of the girls so that you can better understand the tragedy and a personal way, although the handful of photos and descriptions of what happened to these young women's bodies is heartbreaking enough.
The following article does a nice job summarizing some of the the Ottawan Radium Girls' stories and their ultimate impact on state workers compensation coverage, as well as eventually establishing OSHA:
https://www.nprillinois.org/equity-justice/2018-01-25/the-radium-girls-an-illinois-tragedy
⭐⭐⭐
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
3.75. a little long- but an important story. I'll think of the radium girls at every OSHA inspection for the rest of my life.
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 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”.
I'm from IL and was so surprised that I had never heard of the Radium Girls...thinking back the only radium histories I knew were from the manhattan project and Marie Curie. I do plan to make a trip to Ottawa to visit the statue.
These women did so much with the time they had left, the fought an evil and corrupt company, fought for workers rights (especially those with hazard materials), and donated their bodies to science. We owe these girls a great debt.
Some of these portions had me in tears as I imagined their lives, their families, their devote husbands or people who took it upon themselves to be their champions against injustice. The authors note about wanting to do their best to tell their individual stories did a really great job capturing them and finding out about what they were like. I applaud her good efforts because I became captivated.
*note In historical fiction because it does do a narrative type of telling and I think this would be a great book to rec. for this kinda genre too.
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.
That The Radium Girls sheds light on a horrific case of worker exploitation is its greatest gift. Books that succeed in reopening doors that had been closed should be celebrated. While the cases of the radium dial workers hadn't been completely covered up, they were not something many of us were familiar with. The popularity of this book has kept those stories alive.
Personally, I'd like to have learned more about the individuals in this book. Too much time is spent on detailing the illness and legal battle of the women involved, that little is invested in getting to know the individual women. Maybe that information didn't exist. Or perhaps the author didn't want to focus in on individuals. Whatever the reason, I felt that kept me from getting as emotionally involved.
The biggest gripe I had with this book was that the author attributed every ill action to sexism. While sexism certainly has a role in this story, there's more at play. I have no doubt that had impoverished young men been hired as radium dial painters, they would've been treated much the same by the radium dial companies. Greed was what made those women sick. The reason people started to pay attention wasn't because a man had gotten sick, it was because someone with money and prestige had gotten sick. Other examples of worker exploitation and war show clearly that poor men are just as expendable. No doubt, most men of the time would've been treated better by the doctors, the courts, and the media once the truths were uncovered. But let's not shift blame from the rapacious radium dial companies who were really at fault and should be held fully accountable.
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.
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.
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.
One of the most riveting and heartbreaking books I've read recently. Another tome to how quickly we forget and let history repeat itself.
A depressing, uplifting and absolutely fascinating book. I would recommend it to anyone.
4.5 Great novel about an important and almost forgotten movement that happened. A bit long and the author does rehash a lot of information but that could because I work in a Radiation field but they do a great job of describing it.
The physical illnesses these poor women endured (too horrible to mention here) and the treatment by corporation to hide from blame. It reminds me a lot of the tobacco companies admitting the dangers of smoking. Everyone needs to hear this amazing story.
Long and a bit redundant at times, and I would have preferred more about the long-term historical/legal impact than about how pretty all the girls were.
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.