In the 1910s and 1920s, young women in New Jersey and Illinois took jobs painting glow-in-the-dark radium onto watch and clock dials, a task their employers taught them to do by pointing their brushes to a fine tip with their lips -- a technique the companies knew was dangerous and told the women was safe. Kate Moore's 2017 narrative history follows a specific group of these women by name, through the slow horror of radium poisoning, and into the courtroom, where their fight became one of the founding cases in American occupational health and safety law. This review draws on the real critical reception, the documented awards it actually won, and the specific structural criticism that comes up again and again in reader reviews -- not a marketing gloss.
What The Radium Girls Actually Is
This is narrative nonfiction built around named, real individuals rather than a general survey of industrial history. Moore tracks dial painters in Orange, New Jersey, and later Ottawa, Illinois, following specific women -- among them Grace Fryer, Katherine Schaub, and Catherine Wolfe Donohue -- from their excitement at landing what seemed like glamorous, well-paying factory work through the onset of radium-caused illness (jaw necrosis, anemia, bone fractures that came from nothing more than ordinary movement) and into the legal fight several of them waged against their employers, U.S. Radium and Radium Dial. The book is organized roughly chronologically but jumps between the two states' cases, since the Illinois poisonings came to light years after the New Jersey ones despite the companies there having access to the earlier case's findings.
About Kate Moore and Why She Wrote This
Moore was born in Northampton, England, grew up in Peterborough, and studied English Literature at the University of Warwick. Before becoming a full-time author, she worked as an editorial director at Penguin Random House UK and has also worked as an actress. She came to the radium girls' story sideways: in 2015 she directed a play, These Shining Lives, about a small subset of the Illinois dial painters. In interviews, Moore has said she fell in love with these women while working on the production and felt they deserved more than the modest recognition a small regional play could give them -- her stated fear was that they'd simply be forgotten. When she went looking for a full nonfiction account of their story and couldn't find one, she decided, as a storyteller who happened to write nonfiction, to research and write it herself, drawing on court records, medical documentation, and family archives to reconstruct the women's lives in far more detail than had previously been published.
How It Compares to Erin Brockovich and Hidden Figures
Reviewers reach for two comparisons often enough that they're worth addressing directly. The first is Erin Brockovich, the real-life legal assistant whose fight against a polluting utility became a well-known film -- readers who liked that story of a determined outsider taking on a powerful company tend to respond well to this book, though at least one detailed review noted a meaningful difference: Brockovich had a clear, combative champion driving her case from early on, while the radium girls fought a much longer, more grinding battle without anyone playing quite that role for years. The second comparison is Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly's account of Black women mathematicians at NASA -- both books share a basic shape, women doing skilled, underappreciated work at the dawn of a new scientific era, only to have that work go unrecognized or actively suppressed. If either of those books worked for you, this one likely will too, though Moore's prose has also drawn some criticism, with one reviewer describing passages as clunky or melodramatic next to Brockovich's more clipped, matter-of-fact narrative style.
What Critics Actually Said
Rather than inventing a verdict, here's what was actually published about it:
“Carefully researched, the work will stun readers with its descriptions of the glittering artisans who, oblivious to health dangers, twirled camel-hair brushes to fine points using their mouths...Moore details what was a ‘ground-breaking, law-changing, and life-saving accomplishment’ for worker's rights.”— Publishers Weekly
“Written in a highly readable, narrative style, Moore's chronicle of these inspirational women's lives is sure to provoke discussion -- and outrage -- in book groups.”— Booklist (starred review)
“Moore's well-researched narrative is written with clarity and a sympathetic voice that brings these figures and their struggles to life...a must-read for anyone interested in American and women's history, as well as topics of law, health, and industrial safety.”— Library Journal (starred review)
Kirkus Reviews added that Moore “clearly separates the heroines from the villains throughout this deeply researched book, and she never masks her outrage.” That reception translated into real, documented recognition: the book won the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History, a reader-voted prize, was named U.S. librarians' favorite nonfiction book of that year, and was recognized as a Notable Nonfiction Book of 2018 by the American Library Association.
And the aggregate reader picture, for what it's worth:
Where Real Reviews Pushed Back
The most consistent structural complaint across independent reader reviews is the sheer number of named women the book tracks across two states and roughly two decades: with so many dial painters introduced, dropped for chapters at a time, and then reintroduced years later, several readers report losing track of who was who, or being uncertain whether a reappearing name was someone new or someone they'd already met. A related criticism is repetition -- because the book documents case after similar case of poisoning, diagnosis denial, and legal stonewalling, some readers found the middle section's structure noticeably repetitive, and a few felt the roughly 400-page length wasn't fully earned by the material. Some reviewers also noted Moore's habit of ending chapters on cliffhangers as a stylistic choice that reads as more suited to fiction than history. None of this is a dismissal of the book's core achievement, but it's a real and recurring critique worth knowing before you start.
On Lip-Pointing and What the Companies Actually Knew
The technical and moral core of the book is the lip-pointing technique itself: dial painters were taught to shape their brushes to a fine point by putting them in their mouths, meaning they ingested small amounts of radium-laced paint with every dial. Moore documents, through internal company records and prior scientific literature, that executives at U.S. Radium had access to research on radium's dangers well before they stopped requiring the technique -- and in some cases continued instructing workers to lip-point even as they took protective measures themselves in other parts of the plant. This isn't a story about an unknown, unforeseeable danger; it's a story about a documented risk that was allowed to continue.
On the Legal Fight and Its Lasting Impact
The women's court battles -- first the New Jersey case brought by Grace Fryer and four other dial painters, later the Illinois case led by Catherine Wolfe Donohue -- form the book's second half and its clearest through-line to the present. Moore traces how these cases, fought while the women were visibly and severely ill, established legal precedent for occupational disease claims and pushed forward federal safety standards that outlasted the individual lawsuits by decades. The book is explicit that this legacy came at enormous personal cost: several of the women who won their cases died from radium poisoning before or shortly after the verdicts were handed down.
Key Takeaways
- Kate Moore discovered this story directing a play about a small group of the Illinois dial painters, then wrote the book because no full nonfiction account existed yet
- The book won the real, reader-voted 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History -- documented recognition, not just marketing language
- Company records show U.S. Radium had access to research on radium's dangers well before it stopped requiring the lip-pointing technique
- The dial painters' court cases became founding precedent in American occupational disease law, at enormous personal cost to the women who fought them
- The large cast of named women across two states is a genuine reading challenge -- expect to occasionally flip back to reorient yourself on who's who
Who This Book Is Actually For
Readers who want deeply researched, character-driven narrative nonfiction about a documented corporate cover-up, particularly anyone interested in labor history, occupational safety law, or overlooked stories of early 20th-century American women. It rewards patient reading and close attention to names.
Who Should Read Something Else Instead
If you tend to lose track of large ensemble casts in nonfiction, or want a tighter, single-narrative account rather than a multi-state, multi-decade one, the structural criticism above is worth taking seriously before you commit to it. Readers wanting a shorter treatment might prefer Moore's own young readers' edition of the same material.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Winner of the real, reader-voted 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History
- Starred reviews from both Booklist and Library Journal, plus strong notices from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus
- Deeply documented use of court records and company archives to trace what executives actually knew and when
- Gives full names, personalities, and interior lives to women largely erased from popular memory of this history
- Direct, traceable line from this book's events to real changes in American occupational disease law
Cons:
- Large cast of named women across two states and two decades makes the narrative genuinely hard to track at times
- Middle sections read as repetitive to multiple independent reviewers, given the similar structure of each case documented
- Some readers felt the roughly 400-page length wasn't fully earned by the material
Frequently Asked Questions
How did Kate Moore first find out about the radium girls?
She directed a play called These Shining Lives in 2015 about a small group of dial painters in Ottawa, Illinois, and became so drawn to the women's real story that she went looking for a full nonfiction book about them -- and when she couldn't find one, she decided to write it herself.
What's the actual Goodreads rating?
4.16 out of 5 from more than 192,000 ratings as of this writing. The book also won the real 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History, voted on by readers. Check the live number yourself, since it will keep moving.
Is this the same story as the 2020 film Radium Girls?
No, they cover the same broader historical event but are unrelated projects -- the film focuses on a fictionalized version of the New Jersey dial painters, while Moore's book is a researched narrative history covering both the New Jersey and Illinois cases in far more documented detail.
What's the most common criticism of this book?
That the large cast of named dial painters, spread across two states and multiple decades, gets difficult to keep straight, and that some passages feel repetitive as the book documents case after similar case. It's a real, recurring critique from engaged readers, not a dismissal of the book's overall value.
Sources & Further Reading
- Goodreads — The Radium Girls (aggregate rating, reader reviews)
- Publishers Weekly — review
- Booklist — starred review
- Library Journal — starred review
- Kirkus Reviews — review
- NPR — interview with Kate Moore
- PositiveLifes.com — free inspirational and life-changing PDF books
Final Verdict
The Radium Girls backs up its reputation with real, documented recognition -- a reader-voted Goodreads Choice Award, starred trade reviews, and a direct, traceable legacy in American labor law. The structural criticism about tracking so many names across two states is legitimate and worth knowing before you start, but it doesn't undercut what Moore actually accomplished: turning a buried corporate cover-up into a book that makes you remember specific women's names, not just a general historical wrong.
Buy Day rating: 8.8/10