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The Radium Girls
- The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
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The Radium Girls
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Publisher's Summary
The year was 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Drawing on previously unpublished sources - including diaries, letters, and court transcripts as well as original interviews with the women's relatives - The Radium Girls is an intimate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 20s who themselves learned how to roar.
What listeners say about The Radium Girls
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- debm
- 2024-06-26
captivating story
The value of a life is immeasurable. This book merges the injustices of a company, the scientific facts and the individual realities of many women, and their families, who were knowingly poisoned.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Jenn N-T
- 2019-02-10
Swallow
I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Shocking.
The narrator had to grow on me. But I do not recommend using high quality headphones because you can hear her swallow and it is distracting and grew to be disturbing.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 2024-07-03
heartbreaking read
Corny to say, but it's true, this book will make you laugh and cry. The lives of the women are very well told. You really feel for what they went through, which makes it all that much worse of a story to hear.
Still, absolutely worth reading.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 2020-02-17
Ignore the weaker elements and listen
Like other reviewers there were elements of the book that were hard to listen thru. The details of glasses, noses, clothing got tiresome and the style of speaking was irritating. Ignore it. Listen. This story is worth the frustrations.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Emily Holmes
- 2024-01-20
Inspiring story
Despite this being a tragedy, the story is beautifully written and somehow full of hope and spirit. Absolutely essential reading for everyone. No one should take our scientific knowledge for granted.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Elena
- 2020-09-15
Poignant look at the lives of these women
This book delivered what the author promises at the beginning - a personal glimpse into the lives of these women. I had always known that they existed but this brought them, and a moment in history, alive in a very engaging way. It’s shocking to think that these events happened not that long ago, in the grand scheme of things, and it highlights how greedy and corrupt people will sacrifice the health of others for their own gain - a problem that has not gone away.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jollygoodman
- 2019-09-25
Great Book
What happened to these girls was so terrible. Thank you Kate Moore for telling the girls' story.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- Carol Pegura
- 2020-03-06
Mixed feelings
It was very fact based. I found no real main character that you could get to know. it was a devastating time for many young women who had no clue and were fooled into believing what their employers wanted them to believe. I found this to be a very long read. Skipped some chapters to see how it ended. Not entertaining to me.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michelle E. J. Knowles
- 2019-02-09
Excellent Recounting of a Widespread Tragedy
Angela Brazil read Kate Moore's book quite well. This story of the woman who suffered in mind, body & soul was written in such a way that the girls who, at first, were excited to be working in a job that paid well & seemed to bring them prestige. Once many of them started to literally fall apart & to deteriorate as a result of working with radium without safeguards to protect them, though the only glow that remained was what stuck on their hair & clothes & skin & in their bones.
This true account of the struggle, not only for life, but also for compensation, was told in such a way as to show how horrible radium poisoning really is. I am glad that I took the time to listen to this book & to find out the long lasting results of the legal battles waged, as well as what is in place today to protect employees & future generations as a whole as a result of what sufferers of radium poisoning went through.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- D
- 2021-02-21
A deeply moving narrative
The story of the Radium Girls was deeply moving and captivated me from the beginning to the end. The experiences of the girls and their fight for justice continues to resonate today.
My only complaint about this book is how the author passes judgement on the appearance of various individuals. I’m sure that this was meant to help the reader better envision the various people, but I found some of the comments disrespectful to these individual’s memories. For example, comments such as, “her eyes were too close together,” and about the size of an individual’s head compared to their body. I don’t think it is appropriate to pass judgement on their appearances, especially as they have nothing to do with the narrative.
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1 person found this helpful