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Loading... The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women (Bestselling Historical Nonfiction Gift for Men and Women) (original 2016; edition 2017)by Kate Moore
Work InformationThe Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore (2016)
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Favourite Books (487) Top Five Books of 2021 (274) » 15 more Books Read in 2021 (714) Books Read in 2020 (565) Top Five Books of 2018 (783) Top Five Books of 2023 (633) Books Read in 2023 (5,142) SHOULD Read Books! (81) Science (9) The Re-Reads (10) 1900s: America (25) To Read List (3) Five star books (1,488) No current Talk conversations about this book. Kate Moore presents a very interesting and engaging history of the radium girls. She starts the story with the infatuation with radium that led to it's use in so many ways. The story then winds it's way into the 1980s when the last of the radium girls died and a movie was made about the subject. Included in this history is the impact the lives and health of these women had on workers rights and legislation. I highly recommend if the reader has an interest in any of these topics. Approximately one hundred years ago, in Newark and Orange, New Jersey, and in Ottawa, Illinois, females in their teens and twenties were delighted when an opportunity arose to make a better-than-average income as dial painters. Each employee was required to brush a luminous substance containing radium on watch and clock dials. To make the process more efficient and precise, their instructors taught the dial painters to place the brushes in their mouths to form a neat point. What the young ladies did not know was that the material they were handling was toxic. After this radioactive element enters one's body, it is a "silent stalker" that triggers changes in the blood and bones, causing severe and irreversible damage. Kate Moore's "The Radium Girls" is a heartbreaking and superbly written book about these unfortunate women and their fight for justice. To obtain the facts needed to bring "The Radium Girls" to life, Kate Moore drew from primary and secondary sources such as newspaper articles, diaries, official records, and interviews with those who knew the dial painters. Moore points out that the dial painters' bosses reassured their employees that not only was the radium paste safe, but it also improved one's health and appearance! Most of the book is a description of the drawn-out legal jockeying between the companies' high-powered lawyers and the dial painters' attorneys. When they developed alarming symptoms that steadily worsened, the victims needed money to pay their exorbitant medical bills. Even though the companies occasionally offered small settlements, in general, the executives came up with clever tricks to avoid paying anything at all. In spite of their travails, Moore informs us, many of the radium girls displayed admirable "strength, dignity, and courage." Heightening the story's poignancy, Moore provides personal details of the misery endured by the dial painters' loved ones. Their parents, siblings, spouses, and friends came to realize that--barring a miracle—any human being exposed to so much radium would die in agony. In this skillfully written and riveting account of the evils of greed, immorality, and sexism, Kate Moore offers at least one ray of hope. The court battles and widespread publicity generated by the plight of the radium girls set the stage for occupational safety reforms that, although too late for the dial painters, would save many others from a similar fate. no reviews | add a review
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As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" were considered the luckiest alive--until they began to fall mysteriously ill. As the fatal poison of the radium took hold, they found themselves embroiled in one of America's biggest scandals and a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights. The Radium Girls explores the strength of extraordinary women in the face of almost impossible circumstances and the astonishing legacy they left behind. No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumKate Moore's book The Radium Girls was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)363.17Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Other social problems and services Public safety programs Hazardous materialsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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I'm also surprised how little people understood about radium and plutonium, and how much was glossed over when information started getting out. (