#the Quebec Bridge was a Canadian diaster and because of it our engineers wear iron rings on their pinky

[bethanydelleman]

I had tears pouring down my cheeks while I was driving home this morning because I listened to a podcast about the Radium Girls and how hard they fought to hold their employer to account for poisoning them, even though they knew they would die regardless, because they wanted to protect the workers who came after them. Even though their community called them liars and they were in horrible pain, they fought. And then the host started talking about how the Manhattan Project used knowledge gained from the Radium Girls to protect their workers and how the ghosts of those girls and women protected people going forward...

And it made me think of all the ghosts, unnamed and unknown, who in their death protect us: the ghosts of the Titanic, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the Quebec Bridge, and so many others. Disasters that made us change laws and protect people, not just because they were horrific but because survivors and survivors families demanded that we change; kept screaming and fighting and pushing until someone listened and something was fixed.

What a debt we owe.

#the ghosts that protect us #the radium girls #cautionary tales #not jane austen #i don't know how to tag this #the Quebec Bridge was a Canadian diaster and because of it our engineers wear iron rings on their pinky #to remind them of what messing up can cost