I normally don't post reviews, but this book stirred me up!
USA: University of North Carolina Press, 1997
Contents: Introduction (11 pages) and 8 chapters: Watch Alice glow, the New Jersey radium dialpainters (27 pages); The unknown god, radium, research and business (26 pages); Something about that factory, the dialpainters and the Consumers’ League (22 pages); A hitherto unrecognized occupational hazard, the discovery of radium poisoning (25 pages); A David fighting the Goliath of industrialism, compensation in New Jersey and Connecticut (37 pages); Gimme a gamma, iatrogenic radium poisoning (12 pages); We slapped radium around like cake frosting, dialpainting in Illinois (19 pages).
With a conclusion, notes, bibliography and index.
This book is based on a dissertation for a uiniversity higher degree. It is detailed history and analysis of industrial health reform in America, centered on the tragic deaths of dial painters. Consequently it is not light reading and has only marginal relevance to horology. Indeed, after reading a couple of pages of the introduction I decided it was not worth reading the rest; it would be too dry, too technical and the story would be buried under academic language and technique. Fortunately I read the first chapter!
Although most watch and clock collectors will never read this book, hopefully some will. It is a detailed, insightful examination of the conflict between business and government on the one hand, and the rights of workers on the other.
What is simply appalling is that some scientists, doctors and dentists demonstrated utter incompetence or they simply lied (Clark is careful not to be too precise, but it is clear that many deliberately lied). Throughout the book we are told how busenesses suppressed evidence, paid professionals to provide suitable reports, and influenced governments to make it almost impossible for the sick and dying dial-painters to receive any sort of justice.
This is not an attack on America. I have no doubt that exactly the same events occurred in other countries, including England and Australia. Indeed, similar events are still occurring, where business deliberately uses the legal system and influence to prevent just claims receiving just outcomes; the recent antics of an Australian firm to avoid liability for deaths from asbestos is a case in point.
Equally it is not an attack on capitalism; there is growing evidence of similar activities in communist countries.
It is, unfortunately symptomatic of the human condition. Those who achieve power largely do so by ruthless suppression of others, often motivated by greed. I suspect some watch collectors might fall into this class. Anyway, the present day Swiss watch industry panders to this greed and need for status, manufacturing watches for maybe 100 million rich, while the remaining 6 billion of us largely go without. The rest of us hope, often without much hope, that we might be treated fairly.
USA: University of North Carolina Press, 1997
Contents: Introduction (11 pages) and 8 chapters: Watch Alice glow, the New Jersey radium dialpainters (27 pages); The unknown god, radium, research and business (26 pages); Something about that factory, the dialpainters and the Consumers’ League (22 pages); A hitherto unrecognized occupational hazard, the discovery of radium poisoning (25 pages); A David fighting the Goliath of industrialism, compensation in New Jersey and Connecticut (37 pages); Gimme a gamma, iatrogenic radium poisoning (12 pages); We slapped radium around like cake frosting, dialpainting in Illinois (19 pages).
With a conclusion, notes, bibliography and index.
This book is based on a dissertation for a uiniversity higher degree. It is detailed history and analysis of industrial health reform in America, centered on the tragic deaths of dial painters. Consequently it is not light reading and has only marginal relevance to horology. Indeed, after reading a couple of pages of the introduction I decided it was not worth reading the rest; it would be too dry, too technical and the story would be buried under academic language and technique. Fortunately I read the first chapter!
Although most watch and clock collectors will never read this book, hopefully some will. It is a detailed, insightful examination of the conflict between business and government on the one hand, and the rights of workers on the other.
What is simply appalling is that some scientists, doctors and dentists demonstrated utter incompetence or they simply lied (Clark is careful not to be too precise, but it is clear that many deliberately lied). Throughout the book we are told how busenesses suppressed evidence, paid professionals to provide suitable reports, and influenced governments to make it almost impossible for the sick and dying dial-painters to receive any sort of justice.
This is not an attack on America. I have no doubt that exactly the same events occurred in other countries, including England and Australia. Indeed, similar events are still occurring, where business deliberately uses the legal system and influence to prevent just claims receiving just outcomes; the recent antics of an Australian firm to avoid liability for deaths from asbestos is a case in point.
Equally it is not an attack on capitalism; there is growing evidence of similar activities in communist countries.
It is, unfortunately symptomatic of the human condition. Those who achieve power largely do so by ruthless suppression of others, often motivated by greed. I suspect some watch collectors might fall into this class. Anyway, the present day Swiss watch industry panders to this greed and need for status, manufacturing watches for maybe 100 million rich, while the remaining 6 billion of us largely go without. The rest of us hope, often without much hope, that we might be treated fairly.
