Norah Leesman’s Reviews > The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women > Status Update
Norah Leesman
is on page 250 of 479
The Radium Girls is about female factory workers in the 1910-20s who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watches. The symbol I picked is the brushes with the poisonous paint on it that they used. Their jobs and licking the brushes became their cause of near death. The workers would lick the brush, dip it into the paint, and paint the watches. As said in this quote from the novel, “Lip… Dip… Paint" (35).
— Sep 14, 2026 03:06PM
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Norah’s Previous Updates
Norah Leesman
is on page 318 of 479
The conflict that the author uses in, The Radium Girls, is the conflict of the radium poisoning the watch factory workers and how the corporate employers prioritized profit over human health and life. The young workers were put in danger and changed forever, "With every breath she gave, the radium was there. (115)" They were lied to that it was harmless while the executives used protections and denied responsibility.
— 15 hours, 17 min ago