This is not an ordinary book: it's a BookCrossing book! BookCrossing books are world travelers - they like to have adventures and make new friends...and every once in a while they even write home to say what they've been doing.

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Subtitle: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

This is a thick trade paperback: 477 pages including reading group guide, notes, bibliography, index, etc. I think this copy came from Costco.

The "radium girls": so many of them really were just girls - teenagers - when they started their exciting and well-paid new jobs painting radium on clock dials and other instrument panels. Early on, it was patriotic, too: there was a war on and this was a way for females to contribute.

Unfortunately in the US the dial-painters were taught to shape their paintbrushes into tiny points by using their mouths - much like the way you might narrow the end of a piece of thread to fit it through the eye of a needle - and this caused them to ingest small amounts of radium, repeatedly, all day and every day while they worked.

It must have been terrifying when they started to develop mystery ailments, and things were only made worse when they were misdiagnosed by their doctors and lied to by their employers.

Fortunately for the many workers exposed to hazardous conditions - radioactive or not - on the job since then, some of the "girls" fought back in court. The financial compensations were far from adequate, but the controversy led to changes in labor law and workplace safety for which we should all be grateful.

This is a fascinatingly-told story which makes the dial-painters come alive, making the legal battles much more dramatic. It's heartbreaking, and infuriating (I particularly remember the little bombshell at the end of chapter 25), and very moving. I will offer this as a bookray and see if there are any takers.

Supplementary info:

+ More about the Radium Girls from the book's author.
+ A short webcomic about the Ottawa dial-painters.
+ Radium Girl Sculpture in Ottawa, Illinois
+ Len Grossman's website based on his father's files.
+ NPR story on the death of Mae Keane, one of the last of the radium girls.
+ Part 1 of a series on radium from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
+ How the Radium Girls Changed Industrial Safety by David A. King.

Bookray completed October 2020

This book is headed out as a US bookray!

Here are the instructions:

1. Make a quick journal entry when you receive the book so we know it got to you safely.

2. Read and send on within 1 month - or make a journal entry to let us know how it's going if you need to keep the book longer. I realize that sometimes life gets in the way of BookCrossing, but please keep us posted on what's happening.

3. Make a journal entry when you've finished - tell us what you thought!

4. Check back here to make sure the mailing order hasn't changed, then PM the next person in line for an address. Even if you've mailed something to that person before, please double-check their mailing info and make sure they're still interested and able to participate.

5. Use whatever shipping method works best for you; media mail is fine. This book by itself is 15+ ounces, so depending on the packaging it may require the two pound rate.

6. I've included a few (non-radium) glow-in-the-dark page corners; feel free to keep one if there are any left!

Current order (subject to change):
*PLEASE* check before sending to the next person!

DONE - RNAi (West Virginia)
DONE - rhythmbiscuit (Colorado)
DONE - maggiesma (Washington)
DONE - J4shaw (Idaho)
Barcino (California)
book_drunkard (Indiana) - LAST <<< --- here

Monday, January 13, 2020: off to West Virginia!

USPS tracking 9549 0104 3304 0013 7103 98
ETA 2/3/20

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I'm so glad you've found this book! Won't you make a journal entry so the previous readers know that it's safe with you?

How and where did you find the book? What did you think of it?

This is a bookray, so please consult the list above and see where it should go next.

BookCrossing: making the whole world a library!

Just received this book as part of hyphen8's book ray; as the first on the list, I am quite excited to read this book and pass it on to the next reader. I am also fascinated by the handmade glow-in-the-dark corner bookmarks that hyphen8 generously included for us--and inserted in a little handmade pouch right on the book cover!

Fun fact: I've wanted to read this most especially because much of the book is set in factories in New Jersey, which is where I was born. NJ is a state where there was (and still is) a lot of high tech industry. The company my father used to work for had to rebrand and invent new product after a key product of theirs contained lead, and data at the time came out about its risks. I am excited to learn about how failures in labor law have lead to safer workplaces.

I've finished the first quarter of the book. So far, it has gone and described the lives of the young ladies and the expansion of the USRC as well as started describing the debilitating medical mystery of the time, as well as steps to take action against the company. Aside from the NJ studios, there is a company in Illinois as well, and it's interesting how at the moment, girls are seeing doctors but few are connecting the dots to the hazardous workplace. It's the workers themselves that have the suspicion that the workplace is the issue; the medical folks seem to be flaming out as to explanations.

Edit: finished half of the book. This is when some of the girls start retaining legal counsel. Some truly shocking and horrific things come about, and that's aside from the horrific deaths that were described of some of the girls.

Have around 40 pages left to read of the actual text; there's about 100 more pages of author's notes and discussion I'd still like to read. At this point, the Ottawa girls are finally getting their day in court. It's incredibly heartbreaking, especially when Catherine's medical team finally testifies that they really don't know if they can help her live, even if they win the case.

I really enjoyed reading this. What's interesting is that the post-script/epilogue explore how things changed and how things didn't change in response to the lawsuits. Of course, the public became angry, and while some laws and people changed (such as safety regulations for those in the Manhattan Project), the postscript noted that the laws were worthless if the companies were not putting the practices in place.

The USRC was asked to clean up the areas on which they had their factories, but they weaseled out of their commitments, and the EPA had to clean up the areas instead. I now understand why there are so many superfund sites in NJ :/

My father worked for a company that once manufactured lead-based paints. Though he was hired in the late 80s, well after the company transitioned away from lead-based products, he always maintained that the company wasn't doing enough to responsibly dispose of their manufacturing wastes, and despite bringing his concerns up to the various companies that later acquired the plant, little was actually done. NJ has made its fortune in industry, but it's really difficult to enforce the companies actually doing things properly; people willingly trade their health and environmental safety for that economic growth.

At some point this week, I will make it to the post office to pass the book along, and at that point I will post here and in the thread with the tracking #.

Thank you for sharing this book. I've started reading it in the past, and this time I hope to get all the way through.

Arrived safely in Washington.

Sending to j4shaw today as the next person in the bookray.

This Bookring arrived safely with me today.
I'm looking forward to reading it.
Thank you for sharing it hyphen8 (and I love the glow-in-the-dark page corners), and thanks also to maggiesma for sending it on to me.

Read Sept 2020
A powerful read. Enjoyed learning about this period of time and the effects radium had on so many unsuspecting workers.

Received! So excited to get this book. I'd never heard of the story until I saw the Bookring organized by hyphen8. Thank you for sharing it. It definitely looks promising and I'll start reading it asap.

Passing on to the next one.
That was a very heavy read. I'd never heard of the story and I "enjoyed" reading about it, even if "enjoy" isn't quite the right word. One can't enjoy knowing about others' suffering. Still, definitely a must. I'll have to get my own copy now!

Received today.

Thanks for including me in this ray.
Adding to Mt. Toobie, for now, but hope to get to it soon.