美国国家公共电台 NPR Dark Lives Of 'The Radium Girls' Left A Bright Legacy For Workers, Science

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

In the early days of the 20th century, radium factories in New Jersey¹ and Illinois employed mostly women to paint watch faces and clock faces with luminous² paint. The paint got everywhere - hair, hands, clothes. They were called the shining girls because, quite literally³, they glowed, and they were dying. Kate Moore's new book is about the young women who were poisoned by the radium paint and the five of them who sued U.S. Radium in a case that led to labor⁴ safety standards and worker's rights. It's called "The Radium Girls," and Kate Moore joins us from the BBC in London. Welcome.

KATE MOORE: Thank you so much.

KELLY: Your book opens a century ago in 1917 - a time when I had no idea you could buy radium lingerie, radium jockstraps, radium toothpaste, pills. It was everywhere. It was considered a wonder drug, a cure-all.

MOORE: It was. It's astonishing to our modern-day perception to read about it, but radium truly was an international craze. It was in everything from cosmetics⁵ to food. And it very much had an alure to it. You know, it was the rich and famous who would drink radium water and attend radium clinics and spas.

KELLY: Oh, right, because it was expensive, as well.

MOORE: It was really expensive. It was the most expensive substance on Earth at the time. We're talking about equivalent of 2.2 million dollars for a single gram.

KELLY: Wow. And in 1917, of course, with World War I cranking up, there was huge military demand for watches that you could see in the dark and dials that you could see in the - in the dark.

MOORE: That's right. And as you said, this is when the book opens, so shortly before America joined the First World War. And once they did, of course, join that global conflict, there was this huge boom to the radium industry. Soldiers needed watches, and people needed it for the planes and the trucks and so on. And so the dial painters, who were the radium girls - they were employed to paint all these dials with luminous radium paint. And they were taught to lip point, so to put their brushes between their lips to make a fine point for the detailed⁶ handiwork.

KELLY: To actually put the brush with the radium paint into their mouth.

MOORE: Yeah, that's the technique that they were taught. And they did say, you know, Mae Cubberly, who's one of the radium girls that I write about in the book - she said, the first thing we said was - does this stuff hurt you? And their managers said no.

KELLY: When did the young women start getting sick?

MOORE: It tended to take about five years for the initial symptoms to start to show. And that was one of the problems that the radium girls had 'cause, as you said at the start of this interview, radium at the time we're talking about was seen as this wonder drug. It was an incredibly lucrative⁷ industry. You know, all those people making the cosmetics and the clinics and so on - they were making an awful lot of money out of it. So when the radium girls started to get sick about five years after they started dial painting, the radium firms were determined⁸ that they would not link this insidious⁹ disease that was taking so long to show itself. And that was one of the problems the girls had.

KELLY: And when I started getting sick, what were the symptoms?

MOORE: It would start quite innocently, actually. It would start perhaps with an aching limb or a bad tooth that would first start to kind of wobble and then it would fall out, sometimes on its own. But as the sickness developed and set in with the women, it got a lot more gruesome. All of their teeth would fall out, sometimes replaced by ulcers¹⁰ that would then seep¹¹ pus constantly. And that aching limb would actually start to spontaneously fracture. And it might not be a limb. It might be their spine¹². It might be their jaw¹³ bone. And what was happening was the radium had settled in their bones, and it was actually boring holes inside their bones while the women were still alive. It's horrifying¹⁴.

KELLY: It's actually rotting their bones from the inside.

MOORE: It's rotting. Yeah.

KELLY: I suppose worth noting - the - these were young women at the time that they were employed working in factories. Not...

MOORE: Teenagers, many of them. Yeah.

KELLY: Teenagers - I mean, how young were some of them?

MOORE: Well, the youngest - records show that the youngest were 11.

KELLY: Oh, wow.

MOORE: Some of the girls I wrote about were 13, 14 when they started.

KELLY: And to reconstruct those stories - I mean, many of these women, of course, are no longer living as you're trying to research this book. You actually went back and saw their communities, tried to go see where they had lived and where they had worked. What was that like standing¹⁵ outside the site where U.S. Radium Corporation was?

MOORE: Yeah. It was something that I thought was really important because, you know, the radium girls have not been entirely¹⁶ forgotten. I think it rings a vague bell with people. But what I wanted to do with my book is to focus on the girls themselves, so my research did take me to their houses. It took me to the sites. It took me to meet their families so that they could tell me about them because, for me, it was always about the women who were the radium girls. You know, how did they find the courage in the face of the horrific poisoning that I've been describing? How did they find the strength to stand up for their rights?

KELLY: You write that they also had implications for research in the Manhattan Project, for example - that there just was not awareness¹⁷ of some of the dangers that workers there faced. And some of the - some of the work that the radium girls had done helped change the way that program was run - maybe saved lives there, as well.

MOORE: Yeah, absolutely. There was a direct link. Glenn Seaborg, who was the leading scientist on the Manhattan Project, literally wrote in his diary that he had a vision of the ghost girls, of the shining girls, the radium girls. And he therefore insisted that they had to do research into the materials that they were using on the Manhattan Project. It was found that they were biomedically very similar to radium, and therefore there were non-negotiable safety guidelines put in place. And after the war, the Atomic Energy Commission officials actually said the radium girls were invaluable¹⁸ because if it hadn't been for them, countless¹⁹ thousands of other workers would have been killed.

KELLY: And some of these - some of the women who survived into their later years - they submitted to medical testing all their lives.

MOORE: Yeah. Again, this is another part of their extraordinary legacy²⁰. Through their willingness to allow scientists to probe their bodies, they have given us a store of knowledge about internal radiation that we simply would not have had if they weren't prepared to do that. And I think for many of the women, it was their gift for humanity that we're still benefitting from today.

KELLY: The book is called "The Radium Girls: The Dark Story Of America's Shining Women." It's by Kate Moore. Kate Moore, thanks very much.

MOORE: Thank you so much.

1 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

2 luminous   

adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的

参考例句：

• There are luminous knobs on all the doors in my house.我家所有门上都安有夜光把手。
• Most clocks and watches in this shop are in luminous paint.这家商店出售的大多数钟表都涂了发光漆。

3 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 cosmetics   

n.化妆品

参考例句：

• We sell a wide range of cosmetics at a very reasonable price. 我们以公道的价格出售各种化妆品。
• Cosmetics do not always cover up the deficiencies of nature. 化妆品未能掩饰天生的缺陷。

6 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

7 lucrative   

adj.赚钱的，可获利的

参考例句：

• He decided to turn his hobby into a lucrative sideline.他决定把自己的爱好变成赚钱的副业。
• It was not a lucrative profession.那是一个没有多少油水的职业。

8 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

9 insidious   

adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧

参考例句：

• That insidious man bad-mouthed me to almost everyone else.那个阴险的家伙几乎见人便说我的坏话。
• Organized crime has an insidious influence on all who come into contact with it.所有和集团犯罪有关的人都会不知不觉地受坏影响。

10 ulcers   

n.溃疡( ulcer的名词复数 )；腐烂物；道德败坏；腐败

参考例句：

• Detachment of the dead cells produces erosions and ulcers. 死亡细胞的脱落，产生糜烂和溃疡。 来自辞典例句
• 75% of postbulbar ulcers occur proximal to the duodenal papilla. 75％的球后溃疡发生在十二指肠乳头近侧。 来自辞典例句

11 seep   

v.渗出，渗漏；n.渗漏，小泉，水（油）坑

参考例句：

• My anger began to seep away.我的怒火开始消下去了。
• If meteoric water does not evaporate or run overland,it may seep directly into the ground.如果雨水不从陆地蒸发和流走的话，就可能直接渗入地下。

12 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

13 jaw   

n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训

参考例句：

• He delivered a right hook to his opponent's jaw.他给了对方下巴一记右钩拳。
• A strong square jaw is a sign of firm character.强健的方下巴是刚毅性格的标志。

14 horrifying   

a.令人震惊的，使人毛骨悚然的

参考例句：

• He went to great pains to show how horrifying the war was. 他极力指出战争是多么的恐怖。
• The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate. 战争的可能性太可怕了，真不堪细想。

15 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

16 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

17 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

18 invaluable   

adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的

参考例句：

• A computer would have been invaluable for this job.一台计算机对这个工作的作用会是无法估计的。
• This information was invaluable to him.这个消息对他来说是非常宝贵的。

19 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

20 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。