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The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women (Harrowing Historical Nonfiction Bestseller About a Courageous Fight for Justice)
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Original price was: $17.99.$9.17Current price is: $9.17.
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A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon Charts Bestseller!
For fans of Hidden Figures, comes the incredible true story of the women heroes who were exposed to radium in factories across the U.S. in the early 20th century, and their brave and groundbreaking battle to strengthen workers’ rights, even as the fatal poison claimed their own lives…
In the dark years of the First World War, radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive — until they begin to fall mysteriously ill. And, until they begin to come forward.
As the women start to speak out on the corruption, the factories that once offered golden opportunities ignore all claims of the gruesome side effects. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America’s early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights that will echo for centuries to come. A timely story of corporate greed and the brave figures that stood up to fight for their lives, these women and their voices will shine for years to come.
Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the “wonder” substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives…
For fans of Hidden Figures, comes the incredible true story of the women heroes who were exposed to radium in factories across the U.S. in the early 20th century, and their brave and groundbreaking battle to strengthen workers’ rights, even as the fatal poison claimed their own lives…
In the dark years of the First World War, radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive — until they begin to fall mysteriously ill. And, until they begin to come forward.
As the women start to speak out on the corruption, the factories that once offered golden opportunities ignore all claims of the gruesome side effects. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America’s early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights that will echo for centuries to come. A timely story of corporate greed and the brave figures that stood up to fight for their lives, these women and their voices will shine for years to come.
Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the “wonder” substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives…
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Categories: Women Writers
Product name:
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women (Harrowing Historical Nonfiction Bestseller About a Courageous Fight for Justice)
Price:
Original price was: $17.99.$9.17Current price is: $9.17.
Jackson Julia –
Excellent livre, très bien écrit. Je ne me suis pas ennuyée une seule seconde ! Je recommande !
Michelle –
This is a well-written book about this sad, true, American story!
KK –
Awesome book! Educational & very heartfelt sad real life story! I wish I had purchased the actual paper book! 📕 😥
Lynda Kelly –
God, this is harrowing, which of course, due to the subject matter I’d expected but it is really HARROWING. So many times I was gasping for breath as I sat here sobbing. You get to know some of these girls so well and like them so much and they died horrible, horrific, horrendous deaths and it was so bloody needless and so upsetting. As for the companies they worked for I have no words….they just behaved despicably, whichever side of the country they were based out of……..
It was gratifying that 2 lawyers in particular took on their cases and did so much for them…..True heroes, those chaps, cos’ they were properly up against it. Raymond Berry and Leonard Grossman (who even paid from his own pocket to assist them).
I used to do piece-work in a factory as these girls did and always put the end of a reel of soldering wire in my mouth to make it quicker, just as they did with their paint….however, I just burnt my tongue a few times……they didn’t. It painted such a romantic picture, these glowing, beautiful young girls (and many were only early teens) when nobody had a clue of the godawful damage this stuff was doing. And to read this poison has a half-life of 1600 years means, as the author points out, that these girls’ bodies are still full of this awful stuff attacking their bones. Even 5 years later, one of the girl’s coffins still glowed after an exhumation !! Just so appalling…..
Interestingly, someone remarked in the late 1920s that “the luminous watch is purely a fad” yet I bought one just last year to see in the dark, almost one hundred years on.
Hazel and Theo’s story I found immensely touching……she was already so ill but wouldn’t take a penny in assistance from him so he married her !! Another hero……
One passage really touched me, too, “And Grace Fryer was never forgotten. She is still remembered now……you are still remembering her now.” To read of Catherine Wolfe Donohue testifying from bed while her husband “watched as she demonstrated how she had been killed” was just devastating for me, too…….just so awful.
I only spotted one spelling mistake the whole way through as well, which is commendable…..lent written and not leant. So superbly presented as well as written. The author thanked someone in her acknowledgements for giving the dial-painting girls a voice but I thank HER for writing it in the first place. It touched my heart, this book, and I’d highly recommend it. Everyone should learn about this. Plus their cases have helped so many others working with dodgy or noxious substances !! I won’t ever forget what I have just read.
Kimberlie L. –
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.
Mimi –
I had no idea these Radium Girls existed. This book is an amazing body of research. The book is very interesting but, to be honest, it was kind of a slog. It read a lot like a master’s thesis and the sources are well-documented. There are two sets of Radium Girls – the ones in Orange, New Jersey, and another group over in Ottawa, Illinois. The book goes back and forth between these two groups of young women, how their illnesses from radium exposure presented, the doctors and dentists who treated them and then the LONG, drawn-out court battles. There is a huge cast of characters and the author, wisely, lists all of them up front. It is an exhausting book with a sad ending for most of the women suffering from exposure to radium. Corporate greed, inconsistent labor laws, statute of limitations, corporate denial, and pure negligence. These companies were full of liars, thieves, and frauds resulting in tremendous harm to these young women. They suffered greatly trying to find proper medical and dental care to diagnose their maladies. This is a very sad story with some positive worker-protection outcomes. Not a “light” book to read but I’m glad I learned about this sad chapter in our history.
Frank Esposito –
It started out as a required reading choice for my sons AP college course , and became a family experience. My son asked me to help him pick an interesting book from the list provided , and the name jumped out at me, jogged my memory of my grandfather telling me how so many young girls lives had been destroyed by doing what began as important war work [WWII] and continued on long after , even though the factory owners knew that the work was deadly. I don;t want to ruin the book for anyone So just read it!!PS The movie is on Amazon prime & well worth seeing , [I’m prejudiced towards books] and there are also an audible book . You won’t regret & will never forget taking in this true story.
Living –
Es un libro grande, pero ameno, aunque es una investigación periodística me pareció muy bien escrito. Una historia real triste
Inga K. –
These women were not informed of hazards.How corrupt and nasty some are,what liars and what people do for financial gain.An excellent book,cant put it down,,very informative history.
Fluffyluggage –
This book is incredible! These amazing women from our past–there’s really no other way to describe such brave women who had the courage to stand up and fight a government, a business, an industry, and a complete system that was firmly against them… when they were in pain, suffering devastating illness and disease. This book is just incredible. It will bring you to tears, but it’s not all sad. It’s also very heartwarming and absolutely brilliant. Very well-written, it captures the hearts of these ladies who clearly had a zest for life, wanted to help their country, and then later help their fellow women. This is a testimony to the strength of women, and all of these women were strongly Christian, praying regularly for themselves and each other, at a time when the country was very Christian. This is an absolute must-read!!
Amazon Customer –
Tells the story of how industrial greed and ignorance play with our lives