The tragic true story of a real life radium girl.
Luminous: The Story
of a Radium Girl
by Samantha Wilcoxson
Genre: Biographical Historical Fiction
Tragic true story of
a radium girl.
Catherine's life is set on an unexpected course when she accepts a job at
Radium Dial. The dial painters forge friendships and enjoy their work but soon
discover that an evil secret lurks in the magical glow-in-the-dark paint. When
she and her friends start falling ill, Catherine Donohoe takes on the might of
a big corporation and becomes an early pioneer of social justice in the era
between world wars.
Emotive and inspiring - this book will touch you like no other as you witness
the devastating impact of radium poisoning on young women's lives.
It's too late for me, but maybe it will help some of the others.
~ Catherine Wolfe Donohue
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Writer, history enthusiast, and sufferer of wanderlust,
Samantha enjoys exploring the lives of historical figures through research and
travel. She strives to reveal the deep emotions and motivations of historical
figures, enabling readers to connect with them in a unique way. Samantha is an
American writer with British roots and proud mother of three amazing young
adults. She can frequently be found lakeside with a book in one hand and glass
of wine in the other.
Samantha's most recent release is a biography of James Alexander Hamilton
published by Pen & Sword History. She is currently writing a trilogy set
during the Wars of the Roses for Sapere Books.
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GUEST POST
Worker Exploitation at Radium Dial
By Samantha Wilcoxson for Silver Dagger Book Tours
June 2025 – Luminous Blog Tour
Worker exploitation by Radium Dial is the subject of my newest novel, Luminous, which tells the story of Catherine Donohue, one of hundreds of young women who worked as dial painters in the 1920s and 1930s. Her struggle to have her illness recognized as radium poisoning and to have Radium Dial held responsible will stir up the emotions of any reader. The battle she fought helped to change workers’ compensation laws so that others would not suffer her fate. Although Catherine never dreamed of being a heroine, she changed the course of history.
Radium Dial opened in Ottawa, Illinois in 1918 in response to the demand after World War I for glow-in-the-dark watches and instrument dials. The location was an old, brick school building with large rooms and big windows perfect for the painting work. Radium Dial provided many working class women with higher paying jobs than they could obtain elsewhere.
Catherine Donohue was one of those women. She began working at Radium Dial in 1922 at age 19. She and several of her coworkers soon began suffering symptoms of radium poisoning and fought for years to have their conditions recognized and covered by workers’ compensation legislation. Radium Dial continued operating and denied that they owed anything to the women they had slowly poisoned over their years of employment.
In 1936, Radium Dial closed their operations in the old high school and moved into a new building just a few blocks away. This new company was called Luminous Processes. It utilized much of Radium Dial’s assets and hired the same employees. The move was a strategy to protect corporate assets from the lawsuits of former employees. When Catherine’s case was heard before the Illinois Industrial Commission, only $10,000 was available to be paid out to the several families suffering from radium poisoning.
Operating under the name of Luminous Processes, Radium Dial protected millions of dollars in profits from those employed before 1937, but that isn’t the worst of it. They sold the old school to a meat packaging company, which experienced an exceptionally high rate of cancer in its employees and customers. When the building was demolished in 1968, the rubble was used as fill all around Ottawa, poisoning residents for decades.
At the new Luminous Processes building, employees continued to use radium without proper caution, also adding to the town’s high rates of cancer and other diseases. Sick workers were offered $100 each in severance pay to keep them from seeking legal action that they could ill-afford anyway. Luminous Processes operated until 1978. The company paid only $62,000 toward the millions of dollars of cleanup that is ongoing to this day by the Environmental Protection Agency.
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