Lauren
“The women had been…invaluable.”
The Radium Girls is a nonfiction work about girls who worked in dial (clock) painting during the early to mid-1900s. The paint they used was mixed with small amounts of radium, and was especially useful during the First World War for soldiers due to the way radium glows. As such, this was a booming business, yet no one seemed to care that the girls painting dials were directly exposed daily to radium. This book follows the conditions the girls worked in, the consequences they faced, and how they truly changed America through their eyes.
This was one of the most anger inducing and heartbreaking books I’ve ever read. I’ve enjoyed a handful of nonfiction books, but it’s not my typical genre of choice. Despite this, by the end of the book, I could not help but shed tears for these girls.
If you know the history, there is isn’t much to spoil, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t know much about this, and the more I learned the angrier I got. For anyone like me, I won’t include too many details in my review - I think everyone needs to read this. Instead, I want to focus on the author and how she made the story so moving.
Kate Moore wrote in such a way that, at times, you could forget it’s non-fiction. It feels like you’re there with the girls, living their lives. It feels like a story, not necessarily history (though, of course, it is history). While this writing style may not work for everyone, it was clearly a very intentional choice.
Moore is from the UK, and in her author’s note she mentions how she learned about what the girls went through when looking for a play for women to put on at a theatre. Interested, she began doing research into the topic and quickly learned there was plenty of information about the negligent companies. The lawyers and doctors had plenty written about them, too. It was the girls who lived through these events, however, that were missing from the narrative. The one that exists solely because of them.
Moore traveled from the UK to America to visit the places they worked, talk the girls’ families, and read through their journals and correspondence. She physically traced their steps, noticing how close locations of importance on their journals were to their job. She got to know these girls and it comes across so clearly in this book. Moore set out to write a book that features the women who suffered at the hands of these companies, who faced injustice after injustice and still fought. By the end of the book, I felt like I knew them too. She did a fantastic job at giving them a voice when very few have bothered to.
I do not think this is a read I will forget any time soon.
Note: I did see some complaints about the audiobook. I sometimes physically read, sometimes listened, and sometimes immersion read this book, and I thought the audiobook was fine. Nothing particularly special, but it didn’t diminish the reading experience in any way.
“The women had been…invaluable.”
The Radium Girls is a nonfiction work about girls who worked in dial (clock) painting during the early to mid-1900s. The paint they used was mixed with small amounts of radium, and was especially useful during the First World War for soldiers due to the way radium glows. As such, this was a booming business, yet no one seemed to care that the girls painting dials were directly exposed daily to radium. This book follows the conditions the girls worked in, the consequences they faced, and how they truly changed America through their eyes.
This was one of the most anger inducing and heartbreaking books I’ve ever read. I’ve enjoyed a handful of nonfiction books, but it’s not my typical genre of choice. Despite this, by the end of the book, I could not help but shed tears for these girls.
If you know the history, there is isn’t much to spoil, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t know much about this, and the more I learned the angrier I got. For anyone like me, I won’t include too many details in my review - I think everyone needs to read this. Instead, I want to focus on the author and how she made the story so moving.
Kate Moore wrote in such a way that, at times, you could forget it’s non-fiction. It feels like you’re there with the girls, living their lives. It feels like a story, not necessarily history (though, of course, it is history). While this writing style may not work for everyone, it was clearly a very intentional choice.
Moore is from the UK, and in her author’s note she mentions how she learned about what the girls went through when looking for a play for women to put on at a theatre. Interested, she began doing research into the topic and quickly learned there was plenty of information about the negligent companies. The lawyers and doctors had plenty written about them, too. It was the girls who lived through these events, however, that were missing from the narrative. The one that exists solely because of them.
Moore traveled from the UK to America to visit the places they worked, talk the girls’ families, and read through their journals and correspondence. She physically traced their steps, noticing how close locations of importance on their journals were to their job. She got to know these girls and it comes across so clearly in this book. Moore set out to write a book that features the women who suffered at the hands of these companies, who faced injustice after injustice and still fought. By the end of the book, I felt like I knew them too. She did a fantastic job at giving them a voice when very few have bothered to.
I do not think this is a read I will forget any time soon.
Note: I did see some complaints about the audiobook. I sometimes physically read, sometimes listened, and sometimes immersion read this book, and I thought the audiobook was fine. Nothing particularly special, but it didn’t diminish the reading experience in any way.