Tuesday, November 12, 2019

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

(hb; 2017: nonfiction)

From the inside flap

“The Curies’ newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty and the wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water., the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

“Hundreds of girls paint watch faces amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these ‘shining girls’ are the luckiest alive─until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

“But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects and the women’s cries of corruption. As the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America’s early twentieth century and a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights that will echo for centuries to come.”


Review

Radium is an excellent, burn-through, entertaining and infuriating book about the conspiratorial, systematic poisoning of American generations by corrupt scientists, dentists and corporations, from 1914 through 1978. The writing is informative, entertaining (if often downbeat and alarming), flows like a modern-day thriller, and is one of the best nonfiction books I have read in recent years. Its theme of corporate and scientific malfeasance is as timely, educational and enduring as any other more-celebrated American elements and institutions, and serves as yet another reminder of who we need to be fighting─in other words, not each other.

Radium is worth owning.

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