Radical Sisters: Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner, Evelyn Lauder, and the Dawn of the Breast Cancer Movement

In this powerful history, biographer Pearson (Crusade to Heal America) spotlights three women who spearheaded the breast cancer awareness movement: actor and diplomat Shirley Temple Black, journalist Rose Kushner, and businesswoman and philanthropist Evelyn Lauder. Though the three never met, Pearson explains, each worked tirelessly to advocate for early detection programs and increased research into treatments between the 1970s and ’90s. In addition to facing their own breast cancer diagnoses, the three battled public opinion (even the mention of breasts was taboo) and a paternalistic medical establishment. Pearson describes how their awareness campaigns, like the 1972 press conference Black held in her hospital room days after receiving a mastectomy, normalized conversations about breast cancer, and how their philanthropic efforts, including Lauder’s founding of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, brought hundreds of millions of dollars to medical research. Pearson details several moving moments, as when the Washington Post in 1974 decided to run Kushner’s groundbreaking article on a woman’s right to choose her breast cancer treatment. At times, the chronology is hard to follow as Pearson weaves the women’s stories together across decades. Still, it’s an inspiring account of the women who changed how breast cancer is understood and treated. (Sept.)