From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

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

Kate Moore

Discussion: 2017 Read Harder Challenge

Why we're reading this: A moving and unflinching account of the many young women in the radium dial industry stricken with mouth …more
[close] A moving and unflinching account of the many young women in the radium dial industry stricken with mouth cancer and how their fight for justice led to changes in workplace safety and compensation.

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What Members Thought

Apr 23, 2017 Abby Johnson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, grownup_books

This book was a riveting and heartbreaking piece of women's history. Part medical mystery, part courtroom drama. In the 1920s, radium was all the rage and doctors advised people to take it for health. Radium was starting to be everywhere, including on the luminous dials of watches so you could tell time in the dark. The numbers and watch hands were painted with a glow in the dark paint, painted by hand, painted by women working in the dial factories. And to make their brush points fine enough, t ...more

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Apr 12, 2021 Talia rated it really liked it

Shelves: adultnon-fic, audio-books

3.5 stars. Another case of "surprise! Corporate America doesn't care about you!"
I started out reading this book thinking the story could've been wrapped up in 150 pages. But surprisingly, there was enough material to make for a pretty lengthy narrative. I was shocked that the second part of the book focused on the radium painters of Ottawa, IL, as I lived about 70 miles away from there for several years and hadn't heard anything about this story.

There is also a movie version, but the book is bet ...more

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Nov 02, 2017 Mary rated it really liked it

This was one of the hardest books I’ve ever read. Kate Moore details every trial and tribulation received by the girls who first painted glow in the dark watch dials. These women innocently placed their selves into harms way by ingesting the radium with which they painted the dials. Moore graphically enumerated their sarcomas, bone loss and general malaise, so much so that I grew physically sick.
Their fight for justice would, in the end, lead to the creation of OSHA.

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May 01, 2020 Ally rated it liked it

Shelves: truth-stranger-than-fiction, 2020-challenge

This was a fascinating story unfortunately told by a not great writer. I'm a little ashamed that I didn't know this story (it's really crazy) but the author's writing style really detracted. I sort of had to force myself to finish. ...more

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Dec 29, 2018 Jennifer Kronk rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, kindle

"That was the tragedy. Radium had been known to be harmful since 1901. Every death since then was unnecessary."
This book is infuriating and heartbreaking. This book shows what happens when companies value profit over people (as if we needed more evidence of that.) And this book is so well-written. Every woman comes to life on the page and it is crushing to watch the next of these glowing girls be slowly murdered by the company that they used to love and trust. There is a reason that it took me ...more

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