The Radium Girls is told mostly through the eyes of the radium-dial workers, their families, and friends however, previous research never focused on their personal journeys. Despite the harrowing implications, why do you feel this story hasn’t been widely explored?ħ. This means that the bodies of the women and parts of the towns in which they worked remain poisonous to this day. It takes over 1,500 years for the effects of radium to wear off. How do you think today’s world would be different had The Radium Girls not fought back against the radium companies?Ħ. How do you believe the radium companies, and the press, would have reacted differently to the scandal had the workers been male? Considering the time period, how did their gender help and hinder their case?ĥ. Why do you believe they were so resilient, and can you imagine modern companies behaving with such similar ruthlessness?Ĥ. Even after radium was proved poisonous, and the illness verified as work-related, the radium companies stood fast by their convictions. Is there a figure in The Radium Girls that resonates more strongly with you than others? If so, what part of their story or character stood out?ģ. Which part of the story affected you the most, and why?Ģ. The Radium Girls is filled with both triumph and tragedy. Read our interview with the author on the Reading Group Choices blog! less …ġ. And 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 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights that will echo for centuries to come. With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive – until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.īut the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women’s cries of corruption. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe they light up the night like industrious fireflies. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War. The Curies’ newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. The incredible true story of the women who fought America’s undark danger.
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