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A review by jshere
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
4.0
This book is a lot.
It’s long but only so that it can tell the point it’s trying to make: corporations care less for you than the government does. Corporations will fight for money until the bitter end. I have no doubt, if the USRC was still around, they would still be fighting the verdict from the fourties’ on Kathrine Donihue’s case.
Other reviews will say the Illinois plant was an unnecessary side track and I understand that thought. But it’s not until you reach the post script that you learn that plant operated well into the seventies. Working with radioactive material and lying to their workers, most of whom were young women.
I have a lot of feelings about this book. It’s visceral, disturbing, and a rude awakening. But it’s also a stunning tribute to the women who unwilling and unwittingly gave their lives to write our modern workers protections in their radioactive blood.
It’s long but only so that it can tell the point it’s trying to make: corporations care less for you than the government does. Corporations will fight for money until the bitter end. I have no doubt, if the USRC was still around, they would still be fighting the verdict from the fourties’ on Kathrine Donihue’s case.
Other reviews will say the Illinois plant was an unnecessary side track and I understand that thought. But it’s not until you reach the post script that you learn that plant operated well into the seventies. Working with radioactive material and lying to their workers, most of whom were young women.
I have a lot of feelings about this book. It’s visceral, disturbing, and a rude awakening. But it’s also a stunning tribute to the women who unwilling and unwittingly gave their lives to write our modern workers protections in their radioactive blood.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror