The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women (2015) is the true story of the women who worked in a radium factory in New Jersey, America – painting the luminous dials on watches – from 1917 to 1938.
Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium in 1898 and together won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics, with Marie also winning the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemisty for pioneering research on radioactivity. They knew in 1901 that radium was harmful, but they were not fully aware of just how toxic it was: it was hailed as a precious wonder substance.
When radium was available for commercial use in the early 20th century, it was described as ‘undark’ and ‘liquid sunshine’ because even a miniscule amount could cure cancer or provide a luminous glow that shone in the dark. It was the most valuable substance on earth, so who wouldn’t want to work in such a coveted job in one of the radium factories.
Beginning in 1917, the book centres around young women, such as 15-year-old Katherine Schaub, 16-year-old Josephine Smith, 18-year-old Grace Fryer, 16-year-old Edna Bolz, and scores more – 375 girls in total. There were other factory workers, such as managers, and the doctors who extracted the radium. For the dial-painting girls, the radium dust covered their hands, arms, necks, dresses, underclothes, and even their corsets – all shining in the dark.
It was Katherine who first went to the doctor, but it wasn’t until two years later that many girls fell mysteriously ill. Amelia (Mollie) Maggia, at 24 years of age in 1922, was the first to die a ‘painful and terrible death.’ Even the first few deaths had a wrongful diagnosis. It was Katherine who filed the first complaint in mid-1923. In June 1924 a report declared that ‘every girl is in perfect condition.’ It was Margeurite Carlough who sought a lawyer in 1925 to file a suit against the company, not long before the company’s chemist died – the first male.
Segmented into three parts: Knowledge, Power, and Justice, this is the account of the fight of the radium girls for answers about their illnesses, workers’ rights, legal representation, and compensation. But it is also an account of why radium is so deadly and what it does to the body – being latent for years before it manifested its destruction. With a half-life of 1,600 years, radium was indestructible, incurable. It is also an examination of all of the people involved in this litigation – one of the biggest scandals in America in the early 20th century.
Not well-written, but the intention is sound. It is more of a legal account. Kate Moore comprehensively documents the courage and tenacity of the girls, their families, investigators, lawyers, and the medical profession to bring justice, and to champion changes in the way people work with radium. Every word is riveting. Every death is horrifying.
MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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