The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

I first heard of The Radium Girls through an internet article I read sometime last year. I didn't know anything at all about the subject of this nonfiction novel, but I was instantly intrigued by the short summary I saw. It was about a group of women who worked with radium in the 1920s and the effects that the element had on their bodies. I happened to have a birthday coming up around the time I learned about the book, so I put it on my list and received it as a gift. It's been sitting on my bookshelf, waiting for me to pick it up ever since.

Having just finished Radioactive earlier this month, my interest in radium was already piqued. I decided that now was the perfect time to tackle this novel and learn even more about the history of this dangerous and important element. What I ended up discovering was not just an informational text about history and science, but a new favorite novel full of real-life heroes, whose strength and sacrifice made the world a safer place for all of us.

The Radium Girls tells the real-life story of several women working for radium-dial factories in the U.S. during the 1920s. Radium had recently been discovered, and was all the rage during this time period. It was unknown how dangerous radioactivity was to the human body then. People simply thought radium looked really cool, was good for your health, and could have very useful applications in consumer goods. It was added to everything from drinking water to toothpaste, with the promise that it would make buyers look and feel younger. Another popular use for the element was to use its glow-in-the-dark properties to make objects, like watches or military instruments, shine.

The women who worked in radium-dial factories were tasked with painting the numbers on watch dials with radium. Making these glowing watches was very delicate work that required small hands and a light touch, so young women were specifically solicited for these jobs. The women used tiny brushes to apply the paint. In order to produce the fine lines needed to paint accurately on the numbers, they were taught to put the brushes in their mouths and form the point with their lips. Doing this over and over again each day at work led to a lot of radium entering their system, both through their mouths and on their skin. They got a lot of paint on them throughout the course of their workday (no one thought they had to be careful - they were consistently told that radium was a healthful substance), so much so that they glowed in the dark at home. These "radium girls" were quite popular in their communities. Their other-worldly glow was beautiful and they were paid well for their work. Working at a radium-dial factory was considered one of the best jobs a woman could have at the time.

As time went on however, the radium girls started falling ill with mysterious and horrifying maladies. Many lost teeth and suffered terrible jaw infections. Some had trouble with their joints and bones. Others suffered infertility and miscarriages. Some of them began to die, experiencing tremendous pain before passing away. Since their symptoms were all so different, and their medical problems appeared at different times (sometimes years after they had left working at the factories), it took doctors and scientists a long time to figure out that the girls were being poisoned by radium. Many women bankrupted themselves trying to seek medical care for their problems.

Once it was discovered the radium was the culprit behind their illnesses, some of the women tried to sue the radium factories to get compensation for lost wages and medical expenses. In response, the companies engaged in lengthy legal battles with them, denying that radium was a poison. They falsified scientific data and told outright lies to avoid being found guilty of negligence. When it became too obvious that radium was dangerous for them to deny it, they changed tactics and used legal loopholes, like statute of limitations laws, to avoid having to pay out any settlements. The radium girls, many of whom were desperately ill by this point, had to fight a long and hard campaign to prove to world that they were, in fact, poisoned at their jobs and that radium was deadly. Their efforts helped shape U.S. labor laws today and changed the way people handle radioactive elements, which has undoubtedly saved many, many lives.

This novel was beautiful, and that's not something I thought I would be saying about a nonfiction work. Kate Moore takes great care throughout the chapters to focus on the women themselves, rather than on the laws, companies, scientists, or doctors involved. She made each woman mentioned feel like an individual, with their own personalities and desires. This made the story come alive and really underscored the fact that these women were true heroes for their cause. They had to suffer so much and give up all their dreams because of their illnesses. It would have been easy to sink under the weight of that despair and just disappear, but these ladies fought to make themselves heard. Their stories are both terribly sad and very inspirational. The fact that their work lives on in OSHA laws today is a testament to their achievements.

I really learned a lot reading Radium Girls, and I finished it quickly. This read like fiction to me, and I was completely engaged in it from beginning to end. I had no idea that these women existed before reading this book, and that's really a terrible shame. Everyone should know their story, because everyone benefits from their work they did everyday. This is one of those novels I'm going to be recommending to everyone in the coming months; it was just so moving and so good. I'm on a mission right now to cut down on the amount of books I own as I prepare to move later in the year, but The Radium Girls is definitely not going on the donate pile. This is a new favorite for me and is an excellent example of nonfiction that is anything but boring or dry.


Challenge Tally:
True Books 2018: 2/18

Total Books Read in 2018: 4