Cover via Open Library
Matt's pick · not sponsored
The Radium Girls
- radium poisoning
- women workers
- labor rights
- 1920s
- workplace safety
- justice
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Why I'd hand it to you
In the 1910s and 1920s, young women in New Jersey and Illinois painted glowing watch dials with radium paint and were told to point their brushes with their lips. Many became horribly sick. Moore follows the women by name, through the illnesses and the long legal fights that helped change workplace safety rules in America. It is a story of courage that deserves to be told this carefully. Know going in that the medical detail is graphic, and the large cast and repeated court battles can make the middle drag. If you can handle the hard parts, the payoff is real.
— Matt Jordan
Quick summary
- Book
- The Radium Girls by Kate Moore
- Who it's for
- Readers interested in women's history, labor rights and workplace safety, who can take graphic medical detail.
- Key topics
- Radium dial painters in the 1910s and 1920s
- Radium poisoning
- The legal fight for justice
- Workplace safety laws
- Shelves
- History, Science, Health
