Museum Exhibit
The LaSalle County Historical Society Museum is located in Utica, Illinois, about a 20 minute drive from Ottawa, Illinois. There are a couple of buildings, but The Radium Girls Exhibit is located in the one pictured on the left. This is the first exhibit visitors see once they go inside.
You can read more about the Historical Society through their website here.
The Radium Girls
This is the side of the rectangular exhibit that visitors see as soon as they entire this museum building.
Westclox
This is the other side of the exhibit, focusing on Westclox.
1926 Radium Dial Co. Employee Photograph
Letter from Catherine Donohue to Pearl Payne
This letter is on the museum display, but it is also printed in the booklet of letters, which you can see on another webpage on this site, here: Letters from Museum in Utica
Above is a television that plays the documentary film Radium City on a loop. The television sits atop a glass case with information about radium and radium poisoning, as pictured below.
Above, on the left is a letter from Catherine Donohue to Reverend James Keane, with a plea for a miracle or prayers for a happy death, if a miracle was not possible.
Above, on the right are letters from Catherine to Pearl and from Pearl to her husband. Catherine's letter appears on the page Letters from Museum in Utica
Pearl's letter here reads:
"Peoples Hospital Peru, Ill. June 5, 1932
Dearest Sweetheart,
I love you and I am laying here thinking of you and wishing I was in your arms. I am afraid I was very impatient with you for some time and I am heartily sorry. Please forgive me, as I have been very nervous and ill for a long time. Beneath it all I have loved you very deeply and dearly. You and my baby girl are two of my dearest possessions in this world. Pray for me daily, that I may get well perfectly <?> do not grieve, as we must bow our heads the Lords will. Prayers and time will heal your <?> some. Be good to our baby girl, teach her to love and remember meand above all, to be a good virtuous <?>. Tell her I loved her dearly. Kiss and hug her <?> for me. In time teach her to pray for me. <?> of love hugs and kisses to both of <?> dearest and sweetest darlings.
Pearl"
This glass cabinet is on the right of the exhibit.
This is the center case of the exhibit.
Pictured here is the booklet of photocopied letters.
The exhibit includes several sheets of large paper with excerpts from Kate Moore's book The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
