Radium Girls

This haunting graphic novel captures the tragic history of the “radium girls,” depicting through stylized soft-pencil art how the young laborers transition from joyful days at the beach to gruesome illness and death. Painting glowing numbers on watch faces is considered a good job for young women in 1918 New Jersey–“lip-pointing” the brushes into their mouths is just part of the process. The workers laugh when they themselves start glowing, even when it’s enough to garner complaints at a movie theater. The factory’s management, though, is aware that the women are ingesting dangerous radium. As missing teeth, miscarriages, and deaths mount, Cy’s palette of impressionistic purples chillingly morphs into eerie greens. When the women realize the peril they’ve been subjected to, they launch what becomes a landmark legal battle to hold their employers accountable. Their story has been told and retold in books and film, and while this abbreviated version is lighter on historical detail, it excels in showing the camaraderie of the “Ghost Girls” as they become accidental activists. It’s a classic but still relevant case study of how workers—often young women—get subjected to environmental risks. The deceptively gentle art style makes this accessible history all the more shocking. (July)