Literary Pairing: The Radium Girls + Death In The Afternoon

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Nov 27

Written By Lauren Shera

Making a New Year Resolution to read more?

Make a night of it and pair your book with a cocktail and some curated music.

literary pairing:

1 book + 1 cocktail + 1 playlist

this pairing might leaving you feeling radioactive

Book | The Radium Girls By Kate Moore

Cocktail | "Death In The Afternoon"

Playlist | Vine Street Divas

The Radium Girls Book Cover By Kate Moore

“The Dark Story of America's Shining Women" immediately sparked my interest in the subtitle of Kate Moore’s book “The Radium Girls”.

At 400 pages it isn't a light weekend read, but Moore has done such an excellent job at telling this fascinating, tragic story that I felt engaged and hungry for more over the duration of its pages.

I certainly had never heard of this dark chapter in American history. A time when women were hired to work with, and encouraged to use, a radioactive product under the impression it was safe. Young flappers who suffered facial and physical mutations from deadly materials working in early United States industry.

Now after having read The Radium Girls, it seems crazy that these women's stories are not as infamous as that of New York City’s garment district fire that killed 146 people in 1911.

Certainly the story of the radium factory workers is worthy of more notoriety than it has. It was a saga that endured for many years ... a long, torturous series of events that went unchecked and under-reported while women were dying horrific, unthinkable deaths due to their exposure to, and direct contact with, radium.

They were told it would bring them health and beauty. They were told that they were amongst the fortunate few who got to work with this miracle compound.

It was the height of wartime and the sale of luminous watches for soldiers had left the radium factories in a full blown boom, hiring workers by the hundreds and rapidly expanding their factory operations.

From the beginning they were taught not to waste the precious glowing paint, so they were instructed to point their tiny paintbrushes with their lips, dip into the radium paint, and proceed in painting the luminous numbers onto the watches. "Lip, dip, paint."

The girls literally glowed. Illuminated from the inside out with radium in their bodies, covering their clothes and hair, making them shine in the dark even after they were dead and buried.

Unfortunately by the time the brutal effects of radium started to take hold of the NJ girls, the Ottawa facility was opening its doors. Word didn't travel fast in those days, and a whole new flock of women were lead to their eventual poisoning.

"Lip, Dip, Paint!"

They flocked to the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation in Newark, New Jersey as soon as it opened its doors. The plant would later expand to become the United States Radium Corporation.

They were young women with their entire lives ahead of them. Some married with children and looking to help earn for their household, others as young as 15 years old and only staying on for the summer.

Some dedicated years of their lives, only to be laid off when the slow-burn effects of radium poisoning sunk in, leaving them severely handicapped and unable to work.

The radium ate away their bones, crumbled their teeth, and caused sarcomas that made the once-beautiful girls look like the stuff of nightmares.

Many times the women tried to get their suspicions of what could be causing their health concerns validated by those who worked above them. They were almost always dismissed and even when doctors or human relations representatives tried to step in to help or intervene, they were silenced by the bullying powers-that-be, who's pockets ran deep and who always had the upper hand when the cases finally started going to court.

Medical records were kept from the women, as were studies that could have stopped the problem long before it effected so many others. The medical expenses incurred by the women and their families left them destitute, often saddling their loved ones with lifelong debt after the women died.

The story is heartbreaking and at times hard to read, but it is an important one.

When the courts finally listened to them, the women wound up playing a crucial role in workmen's comp laws, changing the statute of limitations on work related injuries (since it often took years for the poison to have visible effects) in what would eventually save the lives of countless people.

It is comforting then, to know that these glowing girls did not all die in vain. Now that their story is finally being told, let's pour one out for these brave souls.

And what better drink than the one that almost looks like you could paint those glow-in-the-dark ceiling constellations with? That eerie green fairy herself, Absinthe.

So reach for your sugar cubes and fancy glasses, and raise a toast to The Radium Girls: Gone, but now, not forgotten.

cocktail:

Death in the afternoon

Needed:

Cocktail shaker, Sugar cube, Absinthe spoon, Flame.

1 oz absinthe

4 oz champagne

Learn how to burn a sugar cube over it

Capital records:

vine street divas

How often do you listen to what women were singing about in the early 1900’s? Put this playlist on in the background and set the tone for your reading. These are the songs Capitol Records were releasing when the ladies were dipping and painting their lips with radium.

Pairing and article written by: Lauren Shera