Karen Silkwood

1. Karen Silkwood The ordinary life and extraordinary death

2. What’s her story?...Why do I care? • Karen Silkwood was born in Longview, Texas on February 19, 1946. She was a nuclear facility technician and a union activist. She suspiciously died on November 13, 1974. She was known as a martyr by anti-nuclear activists and her story was made into a film called Silkwood in 1983 • “Silkwood seemed an unlikely candidate to have had such a dramatic impact on American society. One biographer commented that "most of her life was distinguished by how ordinary it was, as ordinary as her death was extraordinary." Silkwood grew up in Nederland, in the heart of the Texas oil and gas fields. The oldest of three daughters of Bill and Merle Silkwood, she led a normal life. In high school she played on the volleyball team and flute in the band, and was an "A" student and a member of the National Honor Society. She excelled in chemistry and, upon graduation, went to Lamar College in Beaumont to become a medical technician.” From http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9542402

3. Since when does fighting for justice get someone killed? • On the night of November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, a technician at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron River nuclear facility in Crescent, Oklahoma, was driving to Oklahoma City. She planned to meet a friend, Drew Stevens to drop off a manila folder of her research, full of alleged health and safety violations. Drew was a New York Times reporter and a national union representative. Unfortunately she never made it to her friend. Her car swerved off the road and she died. Coincidently the manila folder was no where to be found. This was not the first time that this hot potato issue was brought up and it is continually debated...even today. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5229/is_2003/ai_n19150250 • Her claim was that people were being contaminated by plutonium all the time, and she found evidence of at least seventeen recognized incidents of exposure involving seventy-seven employees in the recent past. Silkwood's concern was obsessive. As her friend Stephens remarked: "She just lived it, couldn't let it go and relax, particularly in the last month she was alive."

4. ……More important information • Most of the Karen Silkwood case is extremely controversial. People of course believe that Ms. Silkwood was trying to get attention, while others believe there is a case that needs to be addressed. A BBC summary says "That controversy continues to this day. It seems likely that the facts will never be publicly known." • Silkwood worked in the Cimarron facility where they made fuel rods that were used in nuclear fission reactors. The rods had particles of plutonium in them, which was a form of uranium, and it was the most toxic substance known at the time. Even a crumb could cause cancer. This was proved in tests on animals, but the employees were never warned. Silkwood joined a union in 1974 and was working to fix some issues ignored by management. That year, the facility was behind on production and was loosing workers. • http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9542402

5. Pictures • The movie poster 

6. Bibliography • http://www.nndb.com/people/740/000123371/karen-silkwood-1-sized.jpg - picture on first slide • http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/USPics45/90327a.jpg - Accident photo • http://www.bookrags.com/Karen_Silkwood