NHS Book Club discusses “The Radium Girls” 

This week the Book Club came together to discuss Kate Moore’s “The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women.” The nonfiction novel focuses on the United States Radium Corporation during the early 1920s. This selective group of women was asked to paint dials with a radium-paint mixture to contribute to the Great War effort. In order to get their paintbrushes to a fine tip, the women were instructed to dip the brush in their mouths. 

Eating radium may evidently seem dangerous to the modern reader. However, at the time, the Radium Corporation controlled all the media surrounding the subject ensuring it only said positive things. The women only began to realize something was wrong when they each started to have different health crises. 

Freshman Heather Begg stated, “It's incredible how cruel people were to the girls, and how they would lie directly to their faces. A girl would come into the Radium Dial factory, asking for compensation for losing her arm, or limping because one leg was four inches shorter than the other, and the manager would say, ‘I don't see anything wrong with you’ and refuse to give them money.” 

A senior member, Jessica Delli Carpini, explains, “It was so interesting to learn about the radium crisis in general because it’s not something that’s normally talked about. I had never heard of the radium crisis before reading the book, so it was so interesting to experience it from the women’s perspectives as well. It has also shown me how far we’ve come as a society when it comes to women’s rights which is something that’s super important for our future.” 

Book Club is a place where your ideas will be heard and respected. Please contact Mrs. Bradley or Mrs. Mannering if you have any questions about joining.