The play showcases the danger women faced in this workplace and highlights the wider lack of concern companies had for protecting the health of their employees.
Narrated by one of the workers, Catherine Donohue, These Shining Lives shows women getting a chance for a well-paying job in the 1920s and early 1930s, which was uncharacteristic for the time in the United States.
The job, which seems easy enough to the four main characters, is painting the hour markings onto different sized watch dials using a radium compound which glows in the dark.
After a period of time, the workers notice that their hands start glowing in the dark, but assume that it is just from the radium powder that is used to paint the faces.
In the end, they have to travel to the city (Chicago) to find a doctor who is willing to put his name on the line and diagnose the women with radium poisoning.
An attorney, Leonard J. Grossman, agrees to take the case for free, with Donohue as the lead plaintiff.
[2] The real Catherine Donohue died on July 27, 1938, shortly after testifying before the Illinois Industrial Commission.
As noted, the play is a period piece commencing in 1922 when the Radium Dial Company opened a factory in Ottawa, Illinois and closes around 1938, when the main protagonist, Catherine Donohue dies from her illness.
By scene 14, the women must travel to the city of Chicago to meet the first doctor to take an honest approach with them regarding their diagnoses.
In the final scene, Catherine narrates the outcome of the case before paying respect and highlighting the strength of the women who died working for Radium Dial.