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

As I begin my review of “The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women” by Kate Moore, it is almost difficult to harness my thoughts in an appropriate fashion. Perhaps to start I will say that this excellent documentary is a magnificent example of synchronicity – the idea that our Universe (or the Creator thereof) manages both Chronos and Kairos – “clock time” and “quantum time” in mysterious and marvelous ways., The story of the women who painted luminous dials with radium paint in the 1920’s and thereafter is of course well-known. I remember my mother, who was an artist (but never a dial-painter) describing the horrific story of the radium poisoning that resulted because these workers had dipped their brushes in the radioactive paint and then “tipped” them with their lips. This was a “cautionary tale” as I began to be interested in painting myself; even non-radioactive paint could be poisonous. Although twirling the brush between the lips was an unsurpassed way of achieving a nice, sharp point, it could be hazardous to your health. Since my mother was beginning her art studies at the same time as the plight of the “Radium Girls” was big in the news, the story was doubtless pivotal for her., Now, a century later, this story is revenant! There are a number of other books recently published on this subject, and of course there is the 2020 movie. As I read this thoroughly annotated and magnificently written documentary, parallels to present-day concerns are glaringly obvious. Radium, recently (in 1902) isolated and studied by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre, was being touted as “the Miracle Element”. In less than 20 years, it was wildly commercialized, being advertised not only as “not dangerous”, but as a “universal cure”. It glowed in the dark, and minuscule amounts mixed with other materials produced a luminous paint that immediately became all the rage for watch and clock dials, as well as being extremely valuable for the “faces” of various scientific instruments. The painters hired to produce these various dials in the factories – called “studios” – in New Jersey and Illinois were universally “girls” – mostly young women in their teens and twenties. They had excellent hand-eye-coordination and could in fact accomplish the delicate painting at an amazing rate. Paid “by the piece”, the emphasis was all on speed, as well as frugality. It turned out that “lip-tipped” brushes were by far the cheapest and most efficient way of applying the paint., Radium is the chemical cousin of Calcium. As such, it turns out to be easily incorporated into bones, teeth, and other organs in the body where calcium uptake occurs. Radium-226, the predominant isotope, has a half-life of 1600 years, and is primarily an alpha-emitter, although other elements in the decay chain emit larger percentages of beta (high speed electrons) or gamma (short wavelength, high energy) electromagnetic radiation. Given this fact, it was assumed that the very slow emission of radiation was not harmful, especially because alpha rays (helium nuclei, very massive particles) are easily blocked by the skin or a sheet of paper. Sadly, as the book so vividly documents, this did not take into account that radium atoms incorporated into bone and other tissue emitted unblocked alpha bombardment directly to the cells themselves., By the time the horrendous damage caused by “eating” the radium became obvious, which of course took several years while the element was consumed in accumulating amounts and then wrought its destruction, the dial companies were raking in the profits. They were prepared neither to impose precautions that might slow production, nor to compensate affected workers in a way that might harm their own “bottom line”. And so, once again, the Hydra-headed monster of corporate greed became the boon of company-supported lawyers and doctors and the bane of the unwitting women who were by then succumbing to the most horrific of illnesses – most specifically, deteriorating, honey-combed bones and raging sarcomas that formed and ruptured with lethal speed., The real thrust of Moore’s documentary is the legal battles which the incredibly brave but tragically doomed women and their families waged, not only for their own survival during strait financial times (once radium poisoning set in, there was no cure, but treatment was extremely costly even if only palliative) but also to protect future workers who might be exploited by the unscrupulous profit-mongering of the “danger deniers” of the radium industry. I do not need to belabor the point about why this is a parable for the present day. The radium industry killed itself along with those who died hideous deaths because of denial, greed, and profiteering. There are present-day corporations rushing down that same path with ever-increasing velocity. It is up to private citizens, the press, and those who still have a conscience in the legal, medical, and business professions to call a halt. In other words, follow the science, not crass capitalism. Believe in cause and effect, and exercise compassion in place of exploitation.

As I begin my review of “The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women” by Kate Moore, it is almost difficult to harness my thoughts in an appropriate fashion. Perhaps to start I will say that this excellent documentary is a magnificent example of synchronicity – the idea that our Universe (or the Creator thereof) manages both Chronos and Kairos – “clock time” and “quantum time” in mysterious and marvelous ways., The story of the women who painted luminous dials with radium paint in the 1920’s and thereafter is of course well-known. I remember my mother, who was an artist (but never a dial-painter) describing the horrific story of the radium poisoning that resulted because these workers had dipped their brushes in the radioactive paint and then “tipped” them with their lips. This was a “cautionary tale” as I began to be interested in painting myself; even non-radioactive paint could be poisonous. Although twirling the brush between the lips was an unsurpassed way of achieving a nice, sharp point, it could be hazardous to your health. Since my mother was beginning her art studies at the same time as the plight of the “Radium Girls” was big in the news, the story was doubtless pivotal for her., Now, a century later, this story is revenant! There are a number of other books recently published on this subject, and of course there is the 2020 movie. As I read this thoroughly annotated and magnificently written documentary, parallels to present-day concerns are glaringly obvious. Radium, recently (in 1902) isolated and studied by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre, was being touted as “the Miracle Element”. In less than 20 years, it was wildly commercialized, being advertised not only as “not dangerous”, but as a “universal cure”. It glowed in the dark, and minuscule amounts mixed with other materials produced a luminous paint that immediately became all the rage for watch and clock dials, as well as being extremely valuable for the “faces” of various scientific instruments. The painters hired to produce these various dials in the factories – called “studios” – in New Jersey and Illinois were universally “girls” – mostly young women in their teens and twenties. They had excellent hand-eye-coordination and could in fact accomplish the delicate painting at an amazing rate. Paid “by the piece”, the emphasis was all on speed, as well as frugality. It turned out that “lip-tipped” brushes were by far the cheapest and most efficient way of applying the paint., Radium is the chemical cousin of Calcium. As such, it turns out to be easily incorporated into bones, teeth, and other organs in the body where calcium uptake occurs. Radium-226, the predominant isotope, has a half-life of 1600 years, and is primarily an alpha-emitter, although other elements in the decay chain emit larger percentages of beta (high speed electrons) or gamma (short wavelength, high energy) electromagnetic radiation. Given this fact, it was assumed that the very slow emission of radiation was not harmful, especially because alpha rays (helium nuclei, very massive particles) are easily blocked by the skin or a sheet of paper. Sadly, as the book so vividly documents, this did not take into account that radium atoms incorporated into bone and other tissue emitted unblocked alpha bombardment directly to the cells themselves., By the time the horrendous damage caused by “eating” the radium became obvious, which of course took several years while the element was consumed in accumulating amounts and then wrought its destruction, the dial companies were raking in the profits. They were prepared neither to impose precautions that might slow production, nor to compensate affected workers in a way that might harm their own “bottom line”. And so, once again, the Hydra-headed monster of corporate greed became the boon of company-supported lawyers and doctors and the bane of the unwitting women who were by then succumbing to the most horrific of illnesses – most specifically, deteriorating, honey-combed bones and raging sarcomas that formed and ruptured with lethal speed., The real thrust of Moore’s documentary is the legal battles which the incredibly brave but tragically doomed women and their families waged, not only for their own survival during strait financial times (once radium poisoning set in, there was no cure, but treatment was extremely costly even if only palliative) but also to protect future workers who might be exploited by the unscrupulous profit-mongering of the “danger deniers” of the radium industry. I do not need to belabor the point about why this is a parable for the present day. The radium industry killed itself along with those who died hideous deaths because of denial, greed, and profiteering. There are present-day corporations rushing down that same path with ever-increasing velocity. It is up to private citizens, the press, and those who still have a conscience in the legal, medical, and business professions to call a halt. In other words, follow the science, not crass capitalism. Believe in cause and effect, and exercise compassion in place of exploitation.

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.

This very well written book recounts the story of industrial illness in the radium industry during the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century. With the help of a few dedicated attorneys, girls who had been recruited to paint numbers on radium dials and watches and subsequently developed horrific illnesses fought their employers for compensation. The author concentrates her story primarily on the experiences of two groups of workers, one in New Jersey and one in Illinois. By personalizing the story, she makes it more immediate and relatable. As a result of the cases brought by the women, changes in Workers Compensation laws and laws related to workplace safety were made at the state and local level. The cost to the women was immeasurable but what they are owed is also immeasurable., Reference is made to some of the many reckless ways radium was being used (in drinks, cosmetics, as medical aids, etc.) I would like to know if there have been any studies on the effect of this practice on the general population. There is only one reference made in passing on how the death of a well known playboy-celebrity was more newsworthy than that of ten or twenty young women.

This very well written book recounts the story of industrial illness in the radium industry during the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century. With the help of a few dedicated attorneys, girls who had been recruited to paint numbers on radium dials and watches and subsequently developed horrific illnesses fought their employers for compensation. The author concentrates her story primarily on the experiences of two groups of workers, one in New Jersey and one in Illinois. By personalizing the story, she makes it more immediate and relatable. As a result of the cases brought by the women, changes in Workers Compensation laws and laws related to workplace safety were made at the state and local level. The cost to the women was immeasurable but what they are owed is also immeasurable., Reference is made to some of the many reckless ways radium was being used (in drinks, cosmetics, as medical aids, etc.) I would like to know if there have been any studies on the effect of this practice on the general population. There is only one reference made in passing on how the death of a well known playboy-celebrity was more newsworthy than that of ten or twenty young women.

This book was a real eye opener into a part of our country’s history. I had no idea that such a thing had happened and what the devastating results were. Something with such promise, and the ensuing enthusiasm that the discovery of radium brought to the country was beyond exciting, initially. What these girls went through and the cover up by the company just sent a flurry of emotions through me. I’m so glad that I read this book and I highly recommend it.