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

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2017

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Part 1, Chapters 4-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Knowledge”

Chapter 4 Summary

World War I ends, and many of the workers marry and leave the factory. Production continues to increase as the company transitions towards consumer products. The company trademarks the paint, called Undark, and experiments with its composition by using a cheaper isotope of radium called mesothorium. They also set up in-house studios for watch manufacturers, which reduces the workforce of dial-painters further. The company is having trouble with its residential location in Orange, as neighbors complain of the factory’s fumes.

Painters Katherine Schaub, Grace Fryer, and Helen Quinlan leave the factory and take jobs in offices, enjoying the change of pace. Meanwhile, Albina Maggia marries, and her younger sister Mollie moves into a boarding house in Orange while retaining work at the factory. Some of the workers, however, begin to feel chronically tired and ill. Radium is not suspected, however, as the radium craze continues spurred by a visit from Marie Curie.

In the summer of 1921, von Sochocky is ousted from the company when his co-founder, George Willis, sells a large share to treasurer Roeder, who then ousts both Willis and von Sochocky in a corporate takeover.

Chapter 5 Summary

Mollie Maggia has had weeks of intense tooth pain before she seeks the help of Dr. Joseph Knef, a specialist in unusual mouth diseases. After noticing her loose teeth and inflamed guns, he begins treating her for pyorrhea, a common inflammatory disease. Mollie continues working in the studio, despite the pain. Soon, many more of her teeth fall out and she develops aches in her body. The doctor cannot figure out what is wrong with her but suspects phosphorus poisoning. The doctor is refused the recipe for the radium paint but is assured that it does not include phosphorus.

As Mollie’s condition rapidly deteriorates, Knef tests her for a second time for syphilis. The test comes back positive, but Knef does not tell her as was customary at the time. After a matter of weeks, the disease has eaten through her jugular vein, causing her to hemorrhage blood from her throat and die. Her official cause of death is syphilis.

Chapter 6 Summary

Just after Mollie’s funeral, the Radium Dial Company opens a factory in Ottawa, Illinois, a close-knit rural town. Lottie Murray, the studio superintendent, hires several young women as dial-painters and teaches them the same lip-pointing technique used in Orange. The girls are as young as 13, despite the official rule that they must be at least 18. As at the factory in Orange, dial painting is demanding, and quality and production expectations are high. Still, the girls enjoy the work. The Radium Dial Company was significantly less concerned with waste than its competitor in Orange, and the women are freer to play with it, including paint their faces and teeth for fun.

Chapter 7 Summary

Back in Newark, former dial-painter Irene Rudolph is experiencing mouth pain so intense that she quits her job in a corset factory. She goes to Dr. James Davidson for treatment, who unknowingly follows in Knef’s footsteps in investigating the factory of Irene’s former employment for phosphorus. Though the doctors do not cross paths, Irene knows about Mollie’s death through her friends and tells the doctor about their shared symptoms. She also hears of another girl, Hazel Vincent, who is having similar symptoms. Following Irene’s urging of Dr. Allen, the Industrial Hygiene Division investigates the factory for signs of contaminants.

At the factory, the inspectors observe the girls lip-pointing. The head of operations, Harold Viedt, falsely claims that he warned the girls against the practice. Though the inspector Lillian Roach concludes that the two illnesses were coincidental, Dr. Szamatolski tests the paint and suspects that radium was the cause of the illnesses.

Several studies had previously reported the negative effects of radium on the body, including a report of a woman who died after being treated with it. Yet a greater amount of literature extolls the benefits of radium. This, however, is authored mainly by researchers employed by the radium industry. Because of the culture’s “radium mania,” Szamatolski’s concern are ignored.

Other employees sicken, too, including George Willis, the company’s cofounder. He has his thumb amputated and it is found to be cancerous. He publishes a short paper warning of the effects of radium, which the company ignores.

Chapter 8 Summary

In Ottawa, working as a dial painter is the most desirable job in town. Nearly all the young women want to try it, but only some are retained. The girls include Peg Looney from a poor family of eight children, and Marie Becker, whose stepfather took all her earnings. Marie hated putting the brush in her mouth and considered quitting, but she stayed on anyway because of the high earnings.

The girls participate in all the fun of the roaring twenties. They dance to jazz and enjoy the fashions, and have fun at work painting their faces with the unused radium paint from the morning.

Part 1, Chapters 4-8 Analysis

Chapters 4-8 foreshadow what is to come. Women who worked even briefly at the radium company begin to get sick, and they are largely ignored. The company denies responsibility and that the paint is harmful. This dynamic will intensify throughout the book, taking legal form in court cases.

These chapters contain the book’s first dial-painter death, of Mollie Maggia. The descriptions of her teeth and jaw disintegrating are vivid and gruesome. The decision to include these details is notable, demonstrating that Moore prioritizes the lived experiences of the women in her narrative, including their suffering.

Mollie’s funeral at the end of Chapter 5 contrasts starkly with the beginning of Chapter 6, where Radium Dial advertises dial-painting work to the young women. Moore switches back and forth between Orange and Ottawa, moving from happy scenes in Ottawa to disturbing ones in Orange. The tragedy at the end of Chapter 6 provides a disturbing angle to the girls’ excitement at their new jobs, and it helps build a sense of dread, outrage, and disgust. The reader knows that the same series of events will be repeated in Ottawa.