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

Kate Moore

May 2017 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Angela Brazil

About this audiobook

1917. As a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous-the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls. As the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses. The very thing that had made them feel alive-their work-was in fact slowly killing them: they had been poisoned by the radium paint. Yet their employers denied all responsibility. And so, in the face of unimaginable suffering-in the face of death-these courageous women refused to accept their fate quietly, and instead became determined to fight for justice. Drawing on previously unpublished sources-including diaries, letters, and court transcripts, as well as original interviews with the women's relatives-The Radium Girls is an intimate narrative account of an unforgettable true story. It is the powerful tale of a group of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned how to roar.

Ratings and reviews

The book is fabulous and interesting. The narration in the ebook version sounds like an AI, which isn't relaxing to listen to. It's very short and choppy and gives me anxiety!

I could not put this book down. It was written perfectly ... I cried at the end reading the authors note as to why she wrote it. It was truly commendable... she served these women a true justice, while intimately describing all the injustice they experienced. I felt as if the author was there, and had witnessed it all first hand. She definitely did her homework.. and skillfully reiterated it all to us. I have true respect for her and all of the beautiful souls that perished from radium poisoning... as well as the doctors and lawyers that gave these women a voice and fighting chance.

This was a well written book about events that were long forgotten but had such great impact on workplace safety and regulations. The girls needed to be memorialized and this book did exactly that while telling their story.

About the author

Kate Moore is a Sunday Times bestselling writer with more than a decade's experience in writing across varying genres, including memoir, biography, and history. She was the director of the critically acclaimed play about The Radium Girls called These Shining Lives.

Angela Brazil is a professional actor who is proud to be a long-standing member of the Resident Acting Company at Trinity Repertory Company. She also teaches at the Brown/Trinity Conservatory. Angela lives with her family in Lincoln, Rhode Island.