By Kate Moore
This book really opened my eyes to the beginnings of the atomic era and the naval nuclear program. After reading Radium Girls, I became interested in learning more about Marie Curie, the atomic era, uranium, etc…
Book Review:
This is non-fiction book about women who were watch dial painters. This luminous powder had to be wetted to paint on the very tiny numbers. This powder, that glowed so beautifully, contained minute amounts of Radium.
These women — no, girls in most cases (they were as young as 11 years old when hired), would put the fine brush in their mouth (as directed), over and over again. They ingested Radium, even though it was in very small amounts, but they did so with the brush hundreds of times a day and thousands of times over a course of years.
The radioactive substance headed directly for their bones and laid dormant for some time. Waiting to reek havoc for a year, five years, sometimes 30 years.
Radium had just been discovered a dozen years ago and it was found to be able to cure cancer. So it was immediately touted as a wonder substance!! But no one stopped to fully consider the consequences of the material. And then capitalist corporations got ahold of it and it seems as if they only cared about their profit, not at all for the people working for them.
Read the book if you want to find out more.
Great book! Learned a lot about Radium and the lives of those women.