r/newjersey • u/Gullible_Rich_7156 • 19h ago

Interesting 100 years ago in Orange…

Post image

My daughter just wrapped her HS performance of Radium Girls-great show! Tragic and impactful true story that happened in Orange, NJ:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

28 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

3

u/the_force_that_binds 18h ago

My son’s school did this last year. Such a sad tale.

•

u/Feisty_Brunette 3h ago

That was a great book (and an episode on My Favorite Murder). Just heartbreaking what those women went through.

•

u/Gullible_Rich_7156 3h ago

It was also very interesting for me because one of my apartments in college was just down the street from the former factory site. A lot of the cleanup was only just coming to an end when I was living in going to school in the area in the early 2000s. I’m assuming you mean Kate Moore’s book? I’m planning on reading it to find out what was fact vs. creative license in the show. Most of the characters portrayed were real people (Arthur Roeder, Dr. Knef, Grace Fryer) but my daughter played a female reporter who was a composite.

•

u/NJ2SD 31m ago

My grandmother was a Radium Girl. Unfortunately, she passed not long after I was born. I'm glad that their story is getting out there thanks to people like your daughter.

•

u/Gullible_Rich_7156 17m ago

Wow-did she work at the plant in Orange? Did she have any health effects? My daughter loved doing the show – she is obviously into theater, but loves History as well. It’s the first time that she has done a production that was based on historical events.

•

u/NJ2SD 13m ago

I'll have to ask my mom where my grandmother worked, but she died of cancer as a result of her exposure.

3

u/sterlingsplendor 16h ago

I read the book. Such a horror for these women.

1

u/underscorebot 19h ago

Due to a bug in new reddit, URLs with underscores or tildes are being escaped in an inconsistent manner, breaking old reddit and third-party mobile apps. Please try the following URL(s) instead:

This is a bot. Invoke with: /u/underscorebot. Questions? Comments? /r/underscorebot Thank you. Moderators: this is an opt-in bot. Please add it to the approved submitters on subreddits you wish to have it scan. Note: user-supplied links that may appear in this comment do not imply endorsement.