![]() ![]() On the beginnings of illness among the Radium Girls "It was in everything from cosmetics to food, and it very much had an allure to it." "Radium truly was an international craze," Moore says. ![]() ![]() Radioactivity wasn't well understood back then - in fact, radium was considered a wonder substance, and it turned up everywhere. Kate Moore's new book The Radium Girls is about the young women who were poisoned by the radium paint - and the five who sued United States Radium in a case that led to labor safety standards and workers' rights advances. They were called the shining girls, because they quite literally glowed in the dark. The paint got everywhere - hair, hands, clothes, and mouths. In the early days of the 20th century, the United States Radium Corporation had factories in New Jersey and Illinois, where they employed mostly women to paint watch and clock faces with their luminous radium paint. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. ![]() Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Radium Girls Subtitle The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Author Kate Moore ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |