The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

Book, 2016

Premise - A true crime narrative that tells the full story of America's "Radium Girls," the girls who were poisoned by the radioactive substance radium when working for the Radium Dial Company mainly in the 1920's-1930's. The novel covers the entirety of the narrative, from the origin of the Radium Dial Company, through the first effects of poison, through the many deaths and legal battles.

Review - I have made it through yet another "Our Shared Shelf" pick, and slowly and steadily making my way through all of them! I remember this actually being a reader's choice pick within the book club, which is surprising. (How many people actually go out of their way to read non-fiction historical books? I definitely don't.)

I checked out this audiobook expecting it to be, at most, 8 hours long. I was not expecting a 16-hour delve that would take months to complete. Time and time again, I thought that the author had the potential to say the exact same thing in so much less words. Half the words, even. The book had no purpose being that long. I get that certain phrases were repeated for dramatic effect (Lip... dip... paint...), but say the same thing too many times and it loses its effect.

Then how did I manage to finish a 16 hour long history book when I have little liking for the sort? Because while the author included a lot of extra, unnecessary language, it was flowery and engaging language. It was compelling, and as the book droned on and on and on, I somehow was not bored.

It's a horrific story, something I could even imagine being taken on by American Crime Story if they were so inclined. It is a story that can make you truly, TRULY hate capitalism and the way it has a history of furthering the oppression of women and minorities. It will also make you hate the legal system and how it favors the privileged - rich, powerful men. The use of radium is purely capitalistic - people thought the lights looked cool in the watches, so they sold well. The lack of morality involved, or even remorse, is stunning.

The story is about so much in the fight for women's rights - the law, employment, economic ownership, and more, but first and foremost, I walked away from this being thankful for my body and my health. I have a female body that works - it keeps me alive, is strong and functional, would allow me to work as I please and take care of myself, and theoretically can bear children. Our health is the most valuable thing that we have and it is not until we lose it that we realize how grateful we should be. These gruesome stories involving tumors/cancer, bone loss, miscarriages and still births, amputations, and most often teeth/jaw necrosis were absolutely horrifying. I listened to this audiobook primarily when I was at the gym, and the grotesque opposition between my health and theirs was oddly (in a twisted way) empowering. The story that likely stuck with me the most was Molly's gory death, as she lost all of her teeth, her jaw was picked out of her mouth, she was unable to eat, and then eventually bled to death from her mouth.

Molly, who's death is the first recounted, is one of the few names and stories that sticks with me. One difficulty I had reading the book was differentiating between all of the women and their stories because 1) there were so many, 2) their stories were quite similar (usually jaw loss, sarcoma, etc.), and 3) they had such similar names. How many variations of Margaret's/Katherine's existed in the 1920s?? And how many Tom's for their husbands??

The book tried to make it as obvious as possible that there were higher-ups who knew, from day one, that radium had potential dangers. And they didn't care. The book also made it obvious that the women were reassured time and time again that no dangers were involved, so they are made to be guiltless. It is disturbing how much guilt at the time was being diverted towards the women - either for saying their causes of death were not radium (syphilis was a common example that was assigned to women at time of death, which was not only inaccurate, but also put a misogynistic level of shame on her memory), or saying that yes, radium was the cause, but they should have known better. Even more disturbing to me is that the term "Radium Girls" quite literally refers to girls - there were many as young as 13 when they started working for the company, with girls dying as young as 21 or so. The power dynamic the company had over these girls was ridiculous.

In the end, the book celebrates the eventual legal victories while also acknowledging the forever-lasting negative effects that cannot be rectified. Hundreds of women had their lives cut short. Radioactive substance existed in the neighborhoods where the Radium Dial Companies existed, causing excess cancer rates even among those who never stepped foot within the factory. The radium effected wildlife. And with a half-life of 1600 years, no person in their lifetime can ever make up for the damage they caused by using radium. (75/100)

Quote - “...bones seemed very much alive: making impressions on photographic plates; carelessly emitting measurable radioactivity. It was all due, of course, to the radium. Sarah’s own life may have been cut short, but the radium inside her had a half-life of 1,600 years. It would be shooting out its rays from Sarah’s bones for centuries, long after she was gone. Even though it had killed her, it kept on bombarding her body 'every day, every week, month after month, year after year.'"

What to read for - It sounds horrific... you think I'd say something nice like "what the women were like!" or "the empowering legal wins!" but there is something just so gruesomely fascinating about reading the gory effects of radium on the body. From a scientific, physiological perspective, it has truly profound effects on the body.

Written by Kate Moore
Published by Sourcebooks