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

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A story that has been told before in clinical and legal terms, but deserves to be told again in human terms.

The author did an excellent job telling the story of these girls who were so callously used and discarded by their employers. She captures their joy and comraderie, as young, independent girls, working in what was perceived at the time as a glamorous job, completely oblivious to the deadly poison they were putting into their bodies every day. She also captures their pain and sufferring as they begin to develop strange symptoms and debilitating pain as their bones begin to rot away or become cancerous. We see the toll it takes on their families as well, both emotionally and financially. We also see their courage as some of them by shear force of will fight to hold their former employers accountable.

This book is very well-written and well-paced, with enough background information and details to give a full picture without becoming too boring or slow. It flows in a nice chronological sequence, making the events easy to follow, and captures the heart of the people involved. It is both enraging and heartbreaking to see how these employers treated these young girls, lying to them time and time again, hiding information, stealing bones from a dead body (!), refusing to help them, as well as how many others in the medical community let them down. We have certainly come a long way in terms of workers' rights and workplace safety, but the attitude of treating employees as expendable resources still persists, sadly.

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