All About - History - Hitler Versus Stain

REVIEWS
AllAboutHistoryonthebooks,TVshowsand
filmscausingastirinthehistoryworld
THE RADIUM GIRLS
A job that made them feel alive eventually killed them
Author Kate Moore Publisher Simon & Schuster Price £16.99 Released Out now
86
Beforethetrueknowledgeof
radium’s power, the world looked
upon it as a shining beacon of
hope.Discoveredin1898byMarie
andPierreCurie,itbecameavital
ingredient on almost anything from
face creams to washing detergents, and
then there were the military authorities
that specified radium-based paint for
compasses,gunsightsandwatches
– instruments that would become
invaluable to World War I.
A dial-painting studio opened in
Newark,NewJersey,tokeepupwith
theever-growingdemandforradium.
As soldiers were called to the front line
to fight in battle, the call for timepieces
grew, and before long, hundreds of
women were “doing their bit” to help in
thewar,workingdayandnighttopaint.
However, painting such tiny dials with
bulky brushes before factories were
invented to do so with precision meant
there was only one way to ensure the
most precious element on Earth was not
wasted:“Dip,lipandpaint.”
The girls working in the studio were
encouraged,bytheirownaccounts,to
slip a radium-soaked brush between
theirlipstokeepitfineandtheirskills
on point. Little did they know that
yearslatertheirhealthwouldsuffer
dramatically, their mouths covered in
pussy ulcers, their jaw bones eaten
away by an unknown disease. Tumours
blossomedwherethereshouldhavebeen
babies, their spines shattered and their
livesfellapart.Workinginthefactory
hadalwaysgiventhemsuchjoy,itwas
sociable,wellpaidandworkwasinan
abundanceinatimewhensomanywere
struggling. But their joy turned to despair
tolearnthattheyweresufferingfrom
radium poisoning and that now they
weretheonesinneed.
Previously unpublished sources
including letters and diary entries make
this book a rare insight to something that
reads like scenes from a horror film, but
infactthestoryisaveryrealone–the
storyofhowthesewomenpioneered
workers’rightsandbecameapartofa
medical advancement that would go on
tosaveothers’livesattheexpenseof
their own. Realising their colleagues were
dropping like flies after having come into
contact with the radium years previously,
thewomenfoughtforjusticeandrefused
toaccepttheirfatequietly.Allthewhile,
acurefortheirailmentwasunknown.
Moore writes in a very characteristic
styleandsetsascenewell,showing
thehighlightsoftheearly1900sand
how these women were working to
establish their independence away from
their husbands and families, to provide
themselves with what they thought
wouldbeabetterlife.Theauthor
perfectly captures the gruesome and
terrifyingdetailsofaveryrealstruggle
that occurred only 100 years ago.
Radium Girls is engaging and hugely
informative, showing that the struggles
of the medical world went beyond the
soldiers injured in the war. This book
is a must-read for those interested in
medicine through the ages, and the
struggletocombatadiseaseneverbefore
seen by doctors at the time.
“Letters and diary entries make this book a rare insight
to something that reads like scenes from a horror film,
but in fact the story is a very real one”