I almost don’t know where to begin because The Radium Girls is a tragic story. It is probably one of the most difficult books, emotionally, I have ever read. It is the true story of the young women who worked in factories that applied a luminous Radium paint onto watch dials so they would glow. Of course, the women did not know it was dangerous and their employers went out of their way to make sure they remained ignorant of the facts. Their struggle to get answers about why they were so sick and get justice once they discovered it was caused by the Radium is inspiring.
For these “girls”, some as young as fourteen, it was a dream of a job. The pay was excellent and to be working with the wondrous new element Radium, that almost every day some new benefit was found, was an added benefit. You were indeed lucky to be hired on to work in the painting studio. The Radium dust settled in the women’s hair and clothes causing them to glow. Everyone wanted to be one of the alluring luminous Radium girls. Even some privileged girls would work for a short period of time to experience it.
Knowing what we do today about Radium, I cringed when reading how the women would paint their clothes with the luminous paint before going out so they would glow and how they would lip point (shape the brush with their mouth) the brush to make it easier to paint the small dials. Then I would grit my teeth and want to strangle the owners and executives at the companies who produced the dials because they knew they were poisoning these women yet did nothing and lied because the dollar was more important than the lives of these women.
The research that went into this book was impeccable. The stories of the different women flowed beautifully with the facts. The light this book shines on these courageous women is dazzling. These women had a tale to be told and I, for one, am glad someone did so eloquently. This is a must read for everyone.
I received an ARC from Sourcebooks, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest opinion.

It's been awhile since I have read a book that has left me with tears streaming down my face, my stomach in knots, and my mind unable to wrap itself around what I've just read. There is no way this could've really happened, right? These were human beings! Women just trying to help out their families and their country in times of war and uncertainty and what did they get in return? Death. Sickness. Ailments so unimaginable that you think as you're reading the symptoms that you're actually reading a horror novel from Steven King instead of a true story. This is real. It really happened, in our country, and it happened to the Radium Girls.

During World War I, many women across the United States were called to work various jobs to aid in the war effort. One of the most coveted jobs of the time was dial painters. Women pained clock faces with a new and amazing substance called radium. These women were paid top dollar compared to other working women during that time so this job was highly coveted.

Radium at the time was all the rage with numerous health claims, including being a cure for cancer! Companies were putting it in everything from medicine to cosmetics and everything in between. It was a wonder substance that could do anything! It could cure your sickness and make you shine!

Radium has a luminescent quality which was perfect for watches being used during the war because the soldiers would be able to see the time at night which was invaluable at the time.

To put the paint onto the dials of the clocks, the girls used a technique called lip pointing. They would put the paint brushes in their mouths and twirl it with their tongue to create a fine point. Then they would dip it in the radium paint and paint the dials.

Over and over, sometimes hundreds of times a day, day by day these girls were ingesting more and more radium. Not to mention the fine powder that covered the girls and the entire factory that gave off this eerie, luminescent glow. The girls lived in a radium world that stayed with them even after they left work. They would paint themselves with the radium and walk around town almost ghost-like. It was fun and many were envied by their friends.

The girls were told that there were such minute traces of radium in the paint that it was harmless, so the girls worked away, day after day, blissfully unaware of what they were actually doing. They were ingesting and inhaling poison, little by little, and before long a few of the women started getting sick. That's when the fun stopped and the nightmare began.

Kate Moore is the director of These Shining Lives which depicts the lives of the women in the radium dial factories. Kate is actually from the United Kingdom, but after hearing the stories of the radium girls, she decided to write a story that was different than any other that has been written about the radium dial workers. She wanted to give these victims a voice. One that they did not have during their brief lives. And she did.

As you read about each of the girls, and what was going on in their lives, you start to think of them as sisters. When you read about the girls getting sick and the unimaginable things that happened to their bodies and you read about the doctor's being baffled at what's happening to them you cringe. You know what's wrong with them, and you want to shout it out through the pages yet you can't.

Your anger flares as you read about the radium dial companies and their denial about radium being the reason for these girls getting sick. These girls are dying and they don't care! They knew it was harmful and yet they continued their practices anyway for profit, putting the mighty dollar ahead of a person's life. Sickening.

The one girl that I identified most with was Catherine Donahue. Her and her husband had only been married for a few years, just like me and my husband. They had two children, just like me, and Catherine fought for justice for the "ghost girls" to the end. I hope that if I were ever in that situation I would do the same.

As I read the depiction of her taking her last breaths, tears were streaming down my face. My heart ached for this woman that lived so long ago. Having fought so hard, then to die like this. I think she really hoped she would overcome this poisoning but in the end the radium won, and she left this world literally screaming. Tears spring to my eyes even writing this now. It's unfathomable. No one should ever have to go through such torture. Now Catherine no longer is in pain and the fight that she started has had a major impact on our world today, including the creation of the EPA.

To this day, the EPA continues to clean the sites of where the radium dial factories both in New York and Illinois once stood. The radium still lingers just like the memories of these women.

I have never felt so connected to a true life story like I did with the Radium Girls. This story could've happened to any of us. It hit so close to home. I HIGHLY recommend this book! It's a hard story to hear but one we should all listen to.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

I had never heard of the radium girls before coming across this book. I will always read an interesting story, and I enjoy learning new things about history that I didn't previously know so this was a good read for me. The Radium Girls is a heartbreaking account of the young women who were working in radium factories during the first world war. This book will enrage you. The lengths to which this company went to not be held liable for the illness they caused so many women is infuriating. These women were dying, some of their friends already dead before they took their story to court, and they still were not taking ownership of their misdeeds. The Radium Girls is a little bit on the long side, but it is broken up into three sections and there are also many girls' stories to be told. If you enjoy books about history, you will probably enjoy The Radium Girls.

I absolutely loved this book! It's a fascinating look at a piece of history I knew nothing about. I was telling my husband about it and he remembered his mother describing the work done by the radium girls. An utterly engrossing and very educational read!

The Radium Girls chronicles the struggles of young women in the 1910s and beyond (it shifts focus to 1930s at some point), as they encounter a seemingly harmless job-- painting radium watches. As their bodies start falling apart (literally), they begin to realize the harm that something like radium can cause.

I really liked this book. There were a few things that became redundant (detailing girl after girl and her various ailments), but otherwise it was a very enjoyable read. I wish there was a little more about the discovery of radium or the aftermath, though. Otherwise, I would definitely recommend this to all readers.

An unflinching look at the fight the Radium Girls--women who lip-painted the dials sent overseas with the glowing and dangerous radium paint--maintained in their search for justice and recognition. The amount of research that went into this was incredible and focused on the lives of the women through several decades as they battled against the companies who thought they could get away with murder.

A full review is found at [a cup full of tea and an armful of books] at the link below.

This is so good and so important. Thank you for such a terrible, lovely, hopeful story.

Please see my review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1974418947

The Radium Girls is one of the most enthralling and heartbreaking books I've read in years. Excellently written & meticulously researched, it tells the true story of young women in the early 1900's who painted luminous watch/clock dial faces with radium so that they would glow in the dark. Radium was fairly new, and, at the time, much touted as a health boon. The girls considered themselves lucky to work in the factory earning high wages, and laughed at the fact that they, too, glowed in the dark due to the radium dust they carried home with them on their skin, hair and clothes.

The laughter soon ceased however, as one by one, they came down with horrific, agonizing ailments caused by radiation poisoning. The medical community was at a loss as such ailments had never been seen before. When the cases were tied together and deemed to be a result of radiation poisoning, the company denied all responsibility saying that the amount of radium used was minute, and refused to recognize the dangerous work atmosphere they provided. They told the workers to continue as they always had, doing nothing to protect them. Lawsuits were filed by some of the women in an attempt to protect the other workers and to cover their own medical expenses. Delay after delay, trial after trial, these courageous women held the course and eventually brought about major and massive changes to the American work environment. Thanks to them, medical and science communities gained vast amounts of knowledge about the impacts of radiation, and laws were put into place to protect workers. It's because of them that America now has federal health standards and occupational safety standards.

Kate Moore does an excellent job of bringing several of these courageous young women to life. We see them when they are young and vibrant, and as they fall victims to the radiation poisoning. Many of the passages are quite difficult to read as the author describes the agony that each of them suffered before their deaths. We feel their pain, their hope, their disgust at the corporation that denied any responsibility for their suffering, their anxiety of waiting for justice and we grieve as one by one, they die.

Making it all even more poignant is the fact stated "Radium has been known to be harmful since 1901. Every death since was unnecessary."

An excellent, eye-opening book! Many thanks to Netgalley, the author, and SourceBooks for providing me with an e-ARC of this fabulous book!!

I hadn't heard much about these girls, so it was great to find out about the lives of the Radium girls. I am very into reading thing about historical happenings, especially more indepth writing about the lives of the people living it and not just about the event itself. Thankyou for a very well written and interesting book. Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this wonderful book

Meticulously researched and skillfully written, this book opened my eyes to an industry and occupation I never knew existed. It also opened my heart to the grief and misery suffered by its workers. I will never see these three words the same again; lip...dip...paint.

This was so interesting, but also devastating. The radium girls changed the face of American industry and health and safety law, but to do so, many of them had to die terrible deaths. This non fiction retelling reads like fiction, as you draw near to so many of these girls and follow them to their doom. Their fight is inspiring.

The email I received asked me not to review the book. If this changes, please let me know as it was outstanding.

A heartbreaking account of the Radium Girls, young women afflicted by radiation exposure during the early 20th century. The book takes us into their workplaces, where they laughed and gossiped while painting watch dials with luminous, radium-based paint. At the time, radium was already known to be dangerous, at least in scientific circles. Somewhat paradoxically it was also touted as miracle cure-all, sold in tonics and expensive spa treatments.

Of course the radium in the paint would eventually work its way into the women's bones, destroying their bodies from within. The havoc it wreaked is truly horrifying, made that much worse by the protracted legal battles they endured in an effort to obtain compensation from the companies that had employed them.

The author's focus is on the women themselves: their personalities, their experiences, their suffering and long battle for justice. The style is deliberately biographical, rather than scientific (I personally would have appreciated a little chemistry refresher, just for some context, but that can easily be found elsewhere).

Moore has done mountains of research, and in order to do justice to each one of these individual women, she pours details on to the page with great empathy. At times the sheer volume of biographical detail makes it hard to keep track, the many victims begin to blur together and the writing becomes repetitive. The court room scenes come alive, rife with emotion and lawyerly dramatics.

My favourite sections were the epilogue and post-script, where the scope widened to include the women's legacy to science and to occupational safety. I wished these sections had been expanded and formed a larger part of the book. Because this story is tragic and moving at the level of personal struggle, and momentous in its historical context.

For the dial painters in Newark and Orange, New Jersey and Ottawa, Illinois, life seemed pretty fantastic when they lucked out and gained employment with the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation and the U.S. Radium Corporation, respectively. They got to work a good job, painting clock faces with luminous paint made with the miracle chemical radium. Their employers reassured them that the radium wasn’t dangerous – in fact, it had health benefits! Paid for the quantity of dials they painted, they were instructed to form the tips of their paintbrushes with their lips, thus ensuring the brush points remained fine enough to do such detail work. The girls left work each day, literally glowing in the dark from the paint dust that settled on their clothes and skin. The women were young and vibrant, excited to be taking part in such an exciting operation. It seemed like life couldn’t get any better.

Until some of the workers started developing pains in their mouths. Until their teeth started to fall out. Until pieces of their <i>jawbones</i> started to fall out. Something was desperately wrong, but no doctor could offer a diagnoses. After all, these women shouldn’t be getting sick; they weren’t working with anything dangerous, right?

In today's world of corporations having the same rights as individuals, <i>The Radium Girls</i> is a vital, brutal reminder of what happens when corporations value the profit margin over the lives of their employees. Kate Moore delivers an honest and appalling account of what happened to these women, many of whose lives were destroyed due to the dangerous work they were doing without ever being informed of the danger. These women are no passive wallflowers; Moore also delves into the legal battles these women fought repeatedly, often at great financial cost to themselves and their families, to achieve justice for themselves and the ones who died before them. She also examines the duplicitousness and culpability of the corporations themselves and the tactics they used to discredit the girls. This all leads to a compelling and heart-wrenching story that should also serve as a warning for what happens when businesses are not held accountable for their actions.

For the record, though, the social history recounted in <i>The Radium Girls</i> is what garners the four star rating; the writing is a 2.5-3 star at best. Moore’s research is to be commended as detailed and in-depth in its coverage of the deteriorating conditions of the dials painters, their struggles to gain compensation and the toll the radium took on their lives. And her writing is very easy to read even if the subject matter is horrific. Unfortunately, Moore’s fervent desire to tell the Radium Girls’ story colors her writing at times with an emotional bias that for me detracted from the book. What happened to these women is awful enough without the occasional emotional tug-on-the-heartstrings; most readers really won’t need to be coerced into feeling more outraged on the women’s behalf. Also, personal beef - she occasionally peppered the narrative, outside of direct quotes, with slang and phrasing I'm assuming from the time period, which I guess was supposed to function as setting the tone or some kind of narrative flavoring but (for me anyway) just came across as anachronistic and threw me out of the narrative.

That said, I still will heartily recommend this book to everyone, because this is a story that needs to be remembered. I found Moore’s postscript even more chilling. While most of the book focuses on the dial painters who were working, (and then suffering and dying) in the early to mid-1900’s, her postscript covers a third company, Luminous Processes, and the dial painters who up until 1978 (only 39 years ago) were still working with luminous paint made with radium but without the proper safety standards. They were told, like the other dial painters before them, that they would be safe. When the plant was eventually shut down, the radiation levels were 1,666 times higher than was safe; sixty-five out of a hundred workers had died. That this is still occurring, even after everything the original dial painters went through, is infuriating and frightening.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-ARC for a review.

First, I want to thank Sourcebooks for even giving me an ARC of this book. I had no experience with reviewing nonfiction books and they still approved me on Netgalley. Second, I want to thank someone (I don’t remember who now) for writing an article about the Radium Girls sometime last year. Without that article, I would never have looked twice at this book. Third, I want to thank Kate Moore for writing this book.

The book is amazing. I knew nothing about this and got quite an education. It might not have been the education Moore meant me to get, but it is an education nonetheless. This story should be required reading: for history, for law, for science. It’s a complex series of interlocking networks that radiate out into the world and tell of failures and learning and redemption.

The central figures of this book are the dial painters themselves, young women who earned far more money than compatriots but were killed by their work. It’s a difficult story, at times horribly gruesome (and some of the descriptions are not for the weak of stomach), and yet filled with love. They were doing their patriotic duty for their country, a country at war with soldiers who needed the luminescent watches. They were horribly betrayed by their bosses. They were abandoned to die by the companies they made millions for and fought at every step of the way when they sought relief for what had been done to them. They were martyrs and mothers, sisters and wives, gay young girls of the 20s. And they were sick and dying from radium poisoning.

Moore’s narrative is pretty close to a straight history of two groups of women: one in Orange, New Jersey and one in Ottawa, Illinois. Both groups fight back against what is being done. Both sets of women have their stories told. The story is built on the idea of giving voices to the dial painters. Moore does an excellent job of using primary sources to paint the picture: letters, diaries, remembered conversations, first person accounts, and newspaper articles of the day. Moore has meticulously researched this book and it shows. There is an intimacy in this telling that is both terribly painful and defiantly uplifting.

There were two flaws in the book. For the most part, Moore keeps herself out of the narrative. But a few times, she indulges in speaking directly to the readers, putting herself as a filter between the reader and the dial painters. It wasn’t necessary. The story alone gets the message across. In the ARC copy, the only photo is the one of Peg Looney at age 8. Other photos are referenced and I assume are in the hardback edition coming out. I would have liked to have seen the photos.

There are two overwhelming facts in this case. First, the radium was killing the dial painters. Second, the executives of USRC and most especially the executives of Radium Dial knew, did not care, and actively hid it. But the facts are small potatoes. It’s the emotions this book engenders that really hit you. I was by turns angry, furious, appalled, horrified, disgusted, shocked, and eventually, just heartbroken.

It’s easy to look back knowing what we do now about radium, about radioactivity, about science, about so many things. In the early 1900s news traveled slowly if it traveled at all. Most of what was known about radium did not come from pure science; it came from the people who were using it in commercial ventures. Obviously, they were biased and had a vested interest in hiding any issues. Additionally, radioactivity was considered far more beneficial than it is and both radium and thorium were used extensively in health and beauty aids in Europe as well as the U.S. Tonics, makeup, spa treatments, mud baths, wraps: radium and thorium were everywhere. Radioactivity itself was still fairly “new” and little understood. It’s easy to see how people would jump onto this craze. Though some people knew it was dangerous, they were drowned out of the marketplace in many respects.

In that sense, it’s easy to understand the initial disbelief on the part of the executives at USRC. It’s even possible to understand how they could decide it was something else that was the issue. Nor, in the beginning stages could you fault small town doctors and dentists for being stumped. There was little to no literature on radium and small town dentists were not likely to be hearing about or reading about applied physics. But, once it became clear, as it did in Orange, that there was a pattern, it was incumbent upon the executives to figure out what was going on.instead of trying to pass the blame.

But, it is in Ottawa that, for me, the horror truly manifested itself. How the executives of Radium Dial and then Luminous Processes were capable of sleeping at night eludes me. They knew about Orange, NJ. They knew about the deaths there and the dangers of radium. They knew enough to get their dial painters tested. They saw those test results and kept them hidden. They lied without compunction to the dial painters and their families. They stole bodies. And when things got difficult and they skipped town, they started a whole new radium painting location. And all the while, they knew they were killing their employees. They knew. The betrayal of the dial painters is simply unfathomable to me. No one should have to write a law that says it is illegal to knowingly kill your employees.

But this is their story: each woman, each day, each battle won or lost, each joy and sorrow. It’s the story of jawbones falling out and hair going white, of hips locked, of sarcomas, of hemorrhages. It’s a story of loves won and marriages, of children and families. It’s a story of sisters and of friends united. It’s a story of fear and pain but also of courage and strength. It’s a story of those left behind and a story of those to come. It's a story about the doctors and dentists and lawyers and government types who took up their cause. Moore did a fantastic job keeping the focus on the women and their families.

This will prove, I believe, to be a seminal work. Other books have been written about the Radium Girls, but I believe this one with it’s breathtakingly painful and human story of ordinary people will capture the imagination and likely be translated to the silver screen as we’ve seen with Hidden Figures and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It isn’t just the injustice done to the dial painters; it is the essential human spirit of the brave ladies who stood up, screamed in the face of Death itself, and transformed the worker’s landscape forever.

What a sad, somber, horrific and mesmerizing read. Teenage girls, some even younger, were told by their employers that radium could not hurt you. So, yes, dip that brush into the radium paint, put the brush in your mouth, get a tip and paint the dials. Paint carefully now, we don't want to waste the paint.

One company even did medical tests on their employees, but never allowed the girls to see the results. The executives saw the results, they knew what was going on and that their employees were being poisoned.

This was all happening around WWI. Years later when these women started having "problems" the radium companies refused to own up to anything. This book tells some of their stories. The good days when they were happy little girls and the bad days when their bodies were full of poison. Most of the women started having problems with their teeth. The radium would insert itself right into the bones of their mouths losing teeth and jaw bones. It affected others in their legs or backs.

This book is a true story and not for the faint of heart. It is also a great book in that the author lets you see these girls/women before and after. While they were sharing each other's misery and tears, I was right there with them doing the same. Well, the tears part anyway. I couldn't imagine the pain or misery.

Definitely one of the best books I've read this year.

Thanks to Sourcebooks for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley for an honest, unbiased review.

Fantastic read that reminds us how far we've come.

Okay, so here's the thing. I didn't think I would love this book as much as I did. I thought it would be your typical history book and I would think it was alright. BUT NO. This book, you guys. I adore this book. I learned so much and feel so much for these girls. I found the story to be kind of haunting. I didn't want to put it down. I would recommend this book. 5 out of 5 stars.

This remarkable book tells the story of women who were the cornerstone of legislation and regulations protecting people in the workplace. Radium Girls is the heart-wrenching yet uplifting account of several young women who succumbed to radiation poisoning after working in watch factories painting luminous dials with radium-infused paint. Using a technique that required that they put their paintbrushes in their mouths to make a fine point after dipping them into the paint, they ingested huge amounts of radium during their careers. At the time, radium was touted as safe and was used in a variety of readily available tonics and other allegedly curative potions.

Of course we know now that radium, with its half-life of 1,600 years, is deadly. As these young women fell ill with a variety of peculiar ailments that eventually caused horrific pain and led to death, they began to wonder why their teeth were abscessing, and, along with chunks of their jaws, falling out of their mouths. They wondered why their previously youthful and flexible joints literally froze, and they wondered why they developed massive, crippling, sarcomas. The medical and dental professionals they consulted were baffled, and their employers denied that radium could be the cause of these debilitating conditions. Finally, one doctor figured it out, and with his efforts and the efforts of some brilliant and persistent attorneys, the case was made and proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that radium had penetrated the bones and organs of these women, resulting in many long and drawn- out painful wasting diseases that were almost always fatal.

We learn about these young women, their families and their communities in a way that makes them truly come alive. While the writing is somewhat stilted at times (hence the four-star review of a five-star story), I learned to overlook that as I became engrossed in this tale of human suffering and corporate denial. A must read - highly recommended.