Radium Girls with Kate Moore

Radium is an element that appears in 88th spot on the periodic table. It is radioactive with a half-life of 1600 years and the radiation in produces as it decays produces a low level light through a process known as radioluminescence. Today, radium is considered the most hazardous of the radioelements and is handled only in controlled and contained environments.

My guest today is Kate Moore. Kate is a book editor, actress, theater director, and bestselling author. She joins me on the podcast today from her home in the U.K. to discuss her book, Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women. In Radium Girls, Kate dives into America's early fascination with radium and profiles the tragic lives of several 1920s women whose job painting with luminescent radium paint led to horrific medical problems and an uphill legal battle to seek justice from the factories that knowingly exposed them to hazardous materials.

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