New Leaf May 2018 Discussion • The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

[issybird]

Originally Posted by gmw

One thing I find sort of amusing is that examples like the snippet I quoted above would have been just as effective (or more so) left at the simple quote of what was said (which I presume was taken from transcript). Most of her audience would have happily filled it in exactly as she wanted - we've seen enough of evasive witnesses on TV to make this stuff up for ourselves. (Whether our reactions reflect reality or not.)

I tried to make this point above. Moore had the talent, the material, and the eye for factual detail to tell her story in as compelling a manner but without embellishment. I certainly would have preferred it.

I've taken the story overall as she told it. There were no red flags to me in the cited material; I found the evidence of the girls' suffering against corporate coldness especially as manifested in outright lies and stonewalling sufficient. Again, there's the reality that sometimes a popular treatment is enough.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by issybird

[...] I've taken the story overall as she told it. There were no red flags to me in the cited material; I found the evidence of the girls' suffering against corporate coldness especially as manifested in outright lies and stonewalling sufficient. Again, there's the reality that sometimes a popular treatment is enough.

Isn't the danger of this sort of interpretation that the popular history becomes the de-facto truth, regardless of whether it properly reflects reality?

If a popular history presents the facts in such a way that it feeds the audiences preconceived ideas about how this sort of thing plays out, then this becomes just a process of confirming existing biases in the audience and no longer teaches the audience anything new. (cf. search bubbles on the Internet.)

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by gmw

Isn't the danger of this sort of interpretation that the popular history becomes the de-facto truth, regardless of whether it properly reflects reality?

If a popular history presents the facts in such a way that it feeds the audiences preconceived ideas about how this sort of thing plays out, then this becomes just a process of confirming existing biases in the audience and no longer teaches the audience anything new. (cf. search bubbles on the Internet.)

Academic history is also interpretation. There is no way for a writer to stand back completely from the material. Contemporaneous reporting and first-person accounts are likewise only snapshots of reality, not the entire story.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by Catlady

This is why you're driving me nuts!

To me, it's obvious where the progression starts--with the company willfully failing to provide any safeguards for the women who were dealing with a potentially dangerous substance. And you keep coming back and making excuses for them--they didn't know, it was something/ new, they thought it was safe in small quantities, etc. But they should have known there was at least a possibility of the radium-infused paint being dangerous to the women who were ingesting it.

At the risk of being the cold-blooded lawyer in the room... Why should they have known? Women were coming and going all the time, many to get married or care for others. There was no reporting scheme like we think of with OSHA or other agencies. There is little proof, at the outset, that every single woman who became ill, much less many of them, connected their illness to their work and reported it to their employer.

I grant the point that if the men were in lead aprons, etc., that they should have considered some protection for the women. But that does not logically follow that they should have known that they were making women ill. I am not willing to grant that the company knew that they were making masses of women ill.

"Should have known" is an awfully hard legal standard to meet, especially when you are on the cutting edge of science.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

At the risk of being the cold-blooded lawyer in the room... Why should they have known? Women were coming and going all the time, many to get married or care for others. There was no reporting scheme like we think of with OSHA or other agencies. There is little proof, at the outset, that every single woman who became ill, much less many of them, connected their illness to their work and reported it to their employer.

I grant the point that if the men were in lead aprons, etc., that they should have considered some protection for the women. But that does not logically follow that they should have known that they were making women ill. I am not willing to grant that the company knew that they were making masses of women ill.

"Should have known" is an awfully hard legal standard to meet, especially when you are on the cutting edge of science.

Even without scientific proof of causation, or legal proof of liability--didn't the company still have a moral responsibility to its workers? Is it necessary for there to be absolute certainty about cause and effect before a company should ensure workplace safety?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Academic history is also interpretation. There is no way for a writer to stand back completely from the material. Contemporaneous reporting and first-person accounts are likewise only snapshots of reality, not the entire story.

Exactly. Point of view and bias are part of a continuum. You could also argue the flip side, that negating the experience of the women to value corporate good and legal status in interpreting events could be bias in the opposite direction.

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

At the risk of being the cold-blooded lawyer in the room... Why should they have known?

In Ottawa, I'd say the slider moved to somewhere between "should have known" and "actually did know." It was certainly well past the point where they could argue with plausible deniability that the difference in radium would mean the girls wouldn't get sick; wishful thinking was no longer sufficient justification and they should have known in the sense that they could no longer just assume that there would be a different outcome. And as for "actually did know," the actions of the Radium Dial Company attest to this: the physical examinations, the full-page ad, Peg Looney's secret autopsy and falsified results and so on prove this.

[gmw]

In a steel foundry people wear great leather aprons and heavy gloves to protect them from the steel - because it's very very hot. The protection is not required later when the steel as cooled back to room temperature. (It still carries some heat, it's not at absolute zero, but that heat is not dangerous.)

What evidence is there that anyone in the early 1900s realised that the harm caused by being close to (relatively) large amounts of radium was any different? The injury was described as looking like a burn. If a person gets burned they heal; if the thing they touched was not hot enough to burn then no healing is necessary and protection would have been redundant. Where is the evidence from before 1924 that the situation with radium was any different in its effects on the human body?

Actually, there was evidence: in the form of its effects on tumours. But no one understood why it worked and the effect was, at that time, interpreted as entirely positive.

It would be nice to think that in these modern times we have learned enough to be wary of things we do not understand. It's not true, of course, but it would be nice to think it anyway. However it is true to the extent that we are aware that some things accumulate in our system and so we must watch out for that. What these women went through was part of teaching us that lesson.


And all of that sits on the assumption that they had the same rules and expectations for workplace safety that we have now. They did not. Some of the advancement happened because of what these women went through.

issybird, I agree that by the time Radium Dial start taking out ads, doing autopsies and getting the girls health-checked it is apparent that they know the risks exist. Their failure to take appropriate action from - at least - that time is culpable, even by the (lower) standards of that time.

[fantasyfan]

I very much enjoyed this book and I feel that it succeeded in its purpose that was to give a voice to the tragic victims of radium poisoning and to tell their story. Kate Moore made this point in her extended interview with the cancer researcher Anne McTiernan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS6X...sX1zotiuQwsBxj

Kate felt that while there have been some excellent studies of the radium dial scandal the voices of the victims had somehow been lost. Thus her book puts an emphasis on those tragic young women and she did considerable research with their families as well as having access to the memoir of Katherine Schaub written as her too short life drew to a close. This is why Kate was able to so vividly describe Katherine’s first encounters with the Radium Dial Company.

Thus, the novelistic method is based heavily upon verifiable facts. There is also considerable inferential material. But these inferences flow from the known facts of the case. I, personally, see nothing wrong in this. The crucial lesson of the terrible events is that the greed and lies of the radium dial companies dehumanised the girls, violated their rights, and caused horrible suffering not only to the women but to those who loved them. In so doing these company officials dehumanised themselves as well.

I listened to many significant passages of the book through the Audible production narrated by Kate Moore herself. Moore does a wonderful job. She conveys not only commitment to the story of the radium girls but also a passionate anger at their treatment. For the most part the prose used by the author is competent but her reading takes it to a new level.

Finally, Kate Moore discusses the newspaper frenzy surrounding the case. If you are interested you can find interesting scans of some of that material here:

http://www.lgrossman.com/pics/radium...20dial200.html

[Bookpossum]

Thanks for this fantasyfan - interesting and thoughtful comments. I shall certainly have a look at the links you have provided for us.

[Catlady]

Since asbestos came up a few times in the discussion of the dangers of radium, I found this article pretty interesting--seems like we haven't learned all that much from the past.

From Newsweek: EPA Will Not Evaluate Asbestos In Homes and Buildings

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Since asbestos came up a few times in the discussion of the dangers of radium, I found this article pretty interesting--seems like we haven't learned all that much from the past.

From Newsweek: EPA Will Not Evaluate Asbestos In Homes and Buildings

Any comment I could make about that would quickly get moved to P&R. The EPA is no longer tasked with protecting.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Any comment I could make about that would quickly get moved to P&R. The EPA is no longer tasked with protecting.

I figured I was close to the line simply posting the link.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Any comment I could make about that would quickly get moved to P&R. The EPA is no longer tasked with protecting.

Originally Posted by Catlady

I figured I was close to the line simply posting the link.

Certainly in the context of a book discussion, comments that are civil, factual and non-partisan are not an issue.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

Thus, the novelistic method is based heavily upon verifiable facts. There is also considerable inferential material. But these inferences flow from the known facts of the case. I, personally, see nothing wrong in this. The crucial lesson of the terrible events is that the greed and lies of the radium dial companies dehumanised the girls, violated their rights, and caused horrible suffering not only to the women but to those who loved them. In so doing these company officials dehumanised themselves as well.

This was essentially my reaction, also. I wished Moore hadn't gone the route of smoothing back his hair because it was unnecessary. But I never thought that she wasn't relying entirely on her research and providing a factual recounting of what happened, i.e., the fictionalizations didn't undermine the essential and verifiable truth. As for focusing on the girls and their suffering, why not? No less valid a focus than on the company or the law.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

Certainly in the context of a book discussion, comments that are civil, factual and non-partisan are not an issue.

Well, mine wouldn't have met at least one of those criteria.