After recently reading Full Body Burden, the story of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, I felt compelled to go back and review Girls of Atomic City, a book that I finished a few months ago, just before life got busy again with school. However, Denise Kiernan's book has stuck with me, and thus gained the right to a place in my blog.
I first heard about the book when the author was interviewed on The Daily Show. I immediately put it on my reading list because I correctly sensed that it contained several topics I love: American history, WWII, women's rights - oh, and atomic bombs - because that's always fun (just kidding NSA...I know you're reading this). The book is about the women who went to work at the Clinton Engineer Works (CEW) in Tennessee, better known today as Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The author follows the stories of several women employees, most of whom were young and single since married women were still expected to remain at home. The plant acquired large amounts of uranium and was responsible separating out the unstable isotopes of uranium 235. This fissile uranium was then sent on to New Mexico's Los Alamos facility where Oppenheimer and others became the "destroyer[s] of worlds." Secrecy at CEW was paramount. The community surrounding CEW had no real idea what was going on there. Inside, you found a weird microcosm. Families with children lived in prefabricated housing, single women lived in dormitories (where their activities were closely monitored to prevent any scandalous carousing), and African-Americans, still segregated, lived in substandard "hutments." There were schools, community centers, cafeterias, stores, and of course giant buildings housing the uranium-separation facilities. After work, people gathered for sporting events, barbecues, dancing, and all the other normal activities of 1940s life. But no one was allowed to talk about work. Under no conditions could you say anything about where you worked within the compound, what you did, or who you worked with. Wives could not ask their husbands how their days went, and the children never knew exactly what their father did to earn a living. The authorities even recruited some of the workers to moonlight as spies and report anyone who talked about work in their off-hours.
The weirdest part of this microcosm was that most of the people actually staffing the facility did not know exactly what they were doing or what they were working with. There were theories, to be sure. Some of the higher-ups obviously had a more accurate knowledge of what was going on, but few people knew that they were all part of a massive plan to create a technology that could destroy the earth. The women profiled in the book served in a variety of roles. Some worked as secretaries, others as chemists, others monitored the machines controlling the enrichment process, and African-Americans were relegated to the janitorial tasks. Not many people knew that they were working with or near a dangerous element. Those tasked with monitoring the machines had no idea what these machines were creating. They were told to just turn the dials and keep needles and gauges within a certain range. Additionally, nothing in the Manhattan Project was called by its real name; even the bomb itself was referred to as "the gadget." You didn't ask questions. You just did what you were told.
Somehow it all worked. Before reading this book I had no idea how many people were actually involved in the project. The number of workers at Oak Ridge alone peaked at around 82,000. Had Clinton Engineer Works not taken such careful precautions to keep its workers in the dark while using propaganda and fear to ensure that lips remained sealed, the Manhattan Project could have easily fallen into the lap of the enemy. (We found out later that the Soviets had infiltrated the project in Los Alamos, but fortunately they were on our side until 1945.)
In contrast to the Rocky Flats book, Atomic City did not address any of the potential environmental and health hazards of uranium enrichment. After reading about Rocky Flats I began to wonder how the workers at Oak Ridge fared and whether there were any noticeable environmental impacts in the area. While Rocky Flat tended to verge more on the anti-government side, this book really emphasized the patriotism of the workers who joined the ranks to win the war. Once the bombs were dropped and the war came to an end, the secret project was revealed. Most the women were overjoyed and proud of their part in the war effort. Many were just as happy to be off the farm and on to a new life.
Now whether or not you agree with how the United States chose to end the war, you have to admit that WWII permanently expanded opportunities for women in America. Many of the girls coming in off the farms and mining towns were carving out a new kind of future for themselves - one that had never been attempted by their mothers and grandmothers. The "Rosie the Riveters" of this war moved women's rights forward. Of course, it would continue on a slow trajectory. The 1950s would pose a setback as women returned to the realm of babymaking and fine china, but their daughters would go to college right along with their sons.Those WWII women had a taste of freedom, a taste of a life outside the confines of domesticity and they wanted their daughters to have that same opportunity. They opened up the eyes of a nation. Women could and would achieve more than tradition had dictated. They could not be held back.
(And to the NSA agent who is reading this post because of all the trigger words herein - be assured, I have not taken chemistry or physics since high school, and I remember very little of it. I can't even work my husband's Playstation, let alone build something destructive. I'm a history nerd, and a bit of a feminist, but still, completely harmless. However, thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit.)
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