Radium Girls

In the mid 1920s, radium was a miracle cure, Madame Curie an international celebrity, and luminous watches were all the rage, until the girls who painted them began to fall ill with a mysterious disease. Radium Girls traces the efforts of Grace Fryer, a dial painter, as she fights for her day in court. Her chief adversary, Arthur Roeder, an idealistic man who cannot bring himself to believe that the same element that shrinks tumors could have anything to do with the terrifying rash of illnesses among his employees.

As the case goes on, Grace finds herself battling not just with the U.S. Radium Corporation, but with her family and friends, who fear that her campaign for justice will backfire. Radium Girls offers a wry, unflinching look at the peculiarly American obsessions with health, wealth, and the commercialization of science

Content Warning: Radium Girls contains themes of illness, workplace exploitation, gender discrimination, and death, depicted in an emotionally intense and realistic manner.