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

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2017

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Part 2, Chapters 31-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Power”

Chapter 31 Summary

Judge William Clark, Berry’s former boss from when he was a law clerk, calls Berry up one day and lightly proposes that he settle the case out of court. Clark has also proposed this idea to USRC lawyers. Though Berry is reluctant to settle out of court, he wants the girls to be comfortable in their last days and avoid the court delays that are dragging the case out.

It is in USRC’s favor to settle, as it allows them to both deny responsibility and to decide when and how to take up future court cases. After some negotiating, they land on a deal of “$15,000 ($208,000) as a cash lump sum for each woman, a pension of $600 ($8,316) a year for life, past and future medical expenses, and USRC to cover all court costs” (284).

USRC accepts, with two important caveats. They deny guilt, and specify that their reasons for settling are “humanitarian” alone. They also specify that the girls will need to be examined by two doctors each month—one appointed by USRC and one mutually agreed upon—and that if the doctors discovered that the girls were no longer suffering from radium poisoning, the monthly payments will cease.

Despite the overall feeling of triumph, Berry feels uneasy after hearing that Clark is “cozy” with USRC executives and has some stocks in the company. He believes USRC will try to find a way to end the payments. The women are mostly pleased with the settlement, and it gives them an important sense of security. Still, they fear for the dial-painters whose sickness had not yet begun.

Chapter 32 Summary

News of the settlements reaches Ottawa, Illinois, and causes the factory workers to panic, especially because some workers had already developed tooth and gum issues. Workers are taken to be tested for radioactivity, but are never given the results of the tests. Catherine Donahue and Marie confront their supervisor, Mr. Reed, but he dismisses them and says they have nothing to worry about.

Just three days after the announcement of the New Jersey settlement, Radium Dial runs a full-page ad in the local paper, claiming that the results of the tests had revealed nothing of concern. The ad also explains that USRC uses mesothorium, while they used “pure radium.” Radium Dial cites Dr. Frederick Hoffman, who continued to promote the belief that mesothorium was to blame and that radium was safe. Most of the workers are relieved upon reading this, and return to work assured that they are safe. However, the Cruse family opened a suit against Radium Dial.

Chapter 33 Summary

Back in Newark, the five women invest their money wisely, while also treating themselves to luxuries that they want. Additionally, doctors have predicted that they would live longer than previously thought. Martland theorizes that there are “two kinds of dial-painter cases, early ones and late ones. The early ones were marked by severe anemia and jaw necrosis…The late cases lacked (or had recovered from) the anemia and jaw infections” (295). He believes that mesothorium’s decay rate is the reason for this. It had passed the initial, rapid decay phase and was moving into a slower phase; thus, the girls may have survived the worst of their illness.

They are also assured that help is coming for future radium poisoning sufferers. A medical conference on radium is to be held later that year, and Swen Kjaer is commencing a more detailed national study.

The women must submit to monthly medical exams, and though the doctors declare that their breath is radioactive, they wonder about the possibility of fraud. In addition, the women quickly realize the tests are not impartial, and are led by USRC doctor Dr. Schlundt, who previously declared the girls radium-free. Berry writes to USRC to complain, but the doctors declare that the girls are indeed radioactive. This is a blow to USRC, where cases are piling up, including one for Mae Cubberley, which Berry is prosecuting.

In November, von Sochocky dies of radium poisoning. He is remembered in mixed terms. For Martland, his assistance developing the radium tests was invaluable for proving the existence of radium poisoning. However, he invented the paint and betrayed the women in the courtroom.

The national radium conference is held in December 1928, and hosted by industry leaders to take control of the narrative. The key professional players are present, but no one invites the New Jersey girls. Also present are Joseph Kelly and Rufus Fordyce, Radium Dial executives.

The surgeon general who chairs the conference writes that anything determined at the conference is to be a suggestion for how to handle radium, but it would not be regulatory in nature. At the conference, the industry spokesmen insists that radium watches are too important a profit source to be abandoned, while Ethelbert Stewart insisted that they are simply a “fad” that is not worth the danger.

Because the lawsuits are localized in New Jersey, and cases in Ottawa have not yet resulted in a definitive lawsuit, Stewart and Berry lack sufficient evidence to propose nation-wide regulations.

Chapter 34 Summary

A quiet hearing, without journalists or many citizens, is held for the Cruse lawsuit on February 26. As part of his national study, Swen Kjaer attends, and is surprised that the lawyer for the Cruse family requested that the trial be pushed back. He later learns that the family’s lawyer has struggled to learn anything about radium poisoning, and that the doctors in town know extremely little about it. Kjaer visits the painting studio, and requests information about Ella Cruse and Peg Looney. In his report, he notes that Peg has demonstrated radioactivity in lab tests in 1925 and 1928. She had never received these results, but is growing so weak that her boyfriend, Chuck, pulls her around in a wagon.

Radium Dial has been warned that the government is particularly interested in Peg’s case, so when she collapses in the studio on August 6, 1929, they admit her to the company hospital and limit her family’s access to her. She dies on August 14. The company doctors immediately try to remove her body, but a relative is present and stops them. The company proposes that that Peg’s body be autopsied, to which the family agrees as long as the family doctor is present. However, the doctor arrives at the agreed upon hour to find that the autopsy has already been completed. Peg’s official cause of death is diphtheria.

Chapter 35 Summary

During an obligatory examination, Dr. Craver tells Katherine Schaub that USRC wants to end the monthly payments and instead give the women one lump sum to cover future expenses. The tests continue to show radioactivity, and Berry wants the doctors to “issue a formal statement” (315) declaring that the dial-painters have radium poisoning. This would significantly aid other lawsuits against USRC; however, Ewing refuses.

Mae Canfield’s hearing is held that summer, and four of the five dial-painters testify. This case is harder, as “the Drinkers, Kjaer, and Martland all refused to testify” (317). Berry manages to summon Ewing and Craver to the hearing, but they refuse to disclose patient information, though the dial-painters have waived their right to patient confidentiality under oath. Eventually, Berry wins an $8,000 ($113,541) settlement for Canfield, but it includes a straitjacket clause that bars him from working on any other case against USRC.

On September 29, the stock market crashes, signaling the beginning of the Great Depression. Quinta, hospitalized at the time, has recently made up with her husband, James, after many conflicts in which he occasionally beat her. He has resented her new wealth and has been gambling. They were happy the next few months as Quinta continued to struggle on, inspired by Albina and Grace who are also doing well. But suddenly, on December 7, she falls into a coma, and dies that night. As she had wished, her body is autopsied and Martland declares that she had died of the same rare sarcoma as Ella Eckert.

Chapter 36 Summary

Catherine Wolfe is removed from her job as a dial-painter due to her sickness and is now in charge of weighing out the radium. The company is watching her closely, and while other girls are taken for medical exams, Catherine is excluded despite her requests to be examined.

Peg’s family hires a lawyer named O’Meara to bring a suit against Radium Dial since they suspect Peg’s death certificate was “in error.” Both O’Meara and the Cruse’s lawyer, George Weeks, have trouble finding anyone who will help them.

Part 2, Chapters 31-36 Analysis

Chapter 33 is the most important chapter is this section. The industry-led radium conference as well as the biased and invasive tests the dial-painters were subjected to encapsulates a key theme in this book—that science is not neutral and can be manipulated for political and financial ends.

Following their suit, the Orange dial-painters are subjected to invasive medical examinations, as it is part of the terms of their settlement to be examined by company doctors if their payments are to continue. There are several company-affiliated people present, and the women are aware of the bias and intimidation. Though they later change the procedures to be less biased, the women’s powerlessness to stop this or interfere in the moment demonstrates the power differential between the workers and their former employer.

Moore writes that the conference was “voluntary” and “organized by the trade, in an attempt to claw back some control” (300). Moore demonstrates the ineffectiveness of committees and conferences when they are run in a biased manner and led by industry executives and others with interests and motivations beyond scientific discovery for its own sake. The lack of action following the conference suggests that the conference would give the appearance of objectivity and due diligence while holding no meaningful policy implications. The conference became a show of who appeared most credible, with the companies having the upper hand because Dr. Flinn silenced the other women.

Furthermore, Moore writes that “no one invited the dial-painters” (300). This suggests a detachment from the lived experience of those suffering and demonstrates that they were at the bottom of the hierarchy of credibility.

In Chapter 34, Radium Dial goes to great lengths to tell the local newspapers how Peg Looney supposedly died, and to share that her parents were “well-pleased” with the results of the autopsy when they were in fact devastated. The careful consideration of what to reveal to the newspapers demonstrates that Radium Dial understands the power of the press to sway public opinion and stoke fears.