Skip to content
You are not logged in |Login  
     
Record:   Prev Next
Resources
More Information
book
BookPrinted Material
Author Kiernan, Denise.

Title The girls of Atomic City : the untold story of the women who helped win World War II / Denise Kiernan.

Publication Info. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2013.

Item Status

Location Call No. Status OPAC Message Public Note Gift Note
 Moore Stacks  F444.O3 K54 2013    Available  ---
Edition 1st Touchstone hardcover ed.
Description xvii, 373 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map, portraits ; 24 cm
Note "A Touchstone Book."
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-347) and index.
Contents Revelation, August 1945 -- Everything will be taken care of: train to nowhere, August 1943 : Tubealloy: the Bohemian Grove to the Appalachian Hills, September 1942 -- Peaches and pearls: the taking of Site X, Fall 1942 : Tubealloy: Ida and the atom, 1934 -- Through the gates: Clinton Engineer Works, Fall 1943 : Tubealloy: Lise and fission, 1938 -- Bull pens and creeps: the Project's welcome for new employees : Tubealloy: Leona and success in Chicago, December 1942 -- Only temporary: spring into Summer, 1944 : Tubealloy: the quest for product -- To work : Tubealloy: the couriers -- Rhythms of life : Tubealloy: Security, censorship, and the press -- The one about fireflies : Tubealloy: pumpkins, spies, and chicken soup, Fall 1944 -- The unspoken: sweethearts and secrets : Tubealloy: combining efforts in the New Year -- Curiosity and silence : Tubealloy: the project's crucial spring -- Innocence lost : Tubealloy : hope and the haberdasher, April-May 1945 -- Sand jumps in the desert, July 1945 -- The gadget revealed -- Dawn of a thousand suns -- Life in the new age.
Summary In this book the author traces the story of the unsung World War II workers in Oak Ridge, Tennessee through interviews with dozens of surviving women and other Oak Ridge residents. This is the story of the young women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who unwittingly played a crucial role in one of the most significant moments in U.S. history. The Tennessee town of Oak Ridge was created from scratch in 1942. One of the Manhattan Project's secret cities, it did not appear on any maps until 1949, and yet at the height of World War II it was using more electricity than New York City and was home to more than 75,000 people, many of them young women recruited from small towns across the South. Their jobs were shrouded in mystery, but they were buoyed by a sense of shared purpose, close friendships, and a surplus of handsome scientists and Army men. But against this wartime backdrop, a darker story was unfolding. The penalty for talking about their work, even the most innocuous details, was job loss and eviction. One woman was recruited to spy on her coworkers. They all knew something big was happening at Oak Ridge, but few could piece together the true nature of their work until the bomb "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, and the secret was out. The shocking revelation: the residents of Oak Ridge were enriching uranium for the atomic bomb. Though the young women originally believed they would leave Oak Ridge after the war, many met husbands there, made lifelong friends, and still call the seventy-year-old town home. The reverberations from their work there, work they did not fully understand at the time, are still being felt today.
Subject Oak Ridge (Tenn.) -- History -- 20th century.
Oak Ridge (Tenn.) -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- History -- 20th century.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
History.
Chronological Term 20th century
Subject Women employees -- Tennessee -- Oak Ridge -- History -- 20th century.
Women employees.
Tennessee -- Oak Ridge.
Women -- Tennessee -- Oak Ridge -- Interviews.
Women.
Genre/Form Interviews.
Subject Oak Ridge (Tenn.) -- Biography.
Uranium enrichment -- History -- 20th century.
Uranium enrichment.
Official secrets -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Official secrets.
United States.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Women -- Tennessee -- Oak Ridge.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Tennessee -- Oak Ridge.
Women.
Womyn.
Genre/Form Biographies.
Biographies.
Interviews.
ISBN 9781451617528 hardcover
1451617526 hardcover
9781451617542 ebook