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Author Kiernan, Denise.

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

Imprint New York, N.Y. : Simon & Schuster, 2013.

Copies

Location Call No. OPAC Message Status
 Axe 2nd Floor Stacks  976.873 K546g 2013    ---  Available
 Eureka Non-Fiction  976.8 Kie    ---  Available
 Pittsburg 2nd Fl Non-Fiction  976.8 Kie    ---  Available
1 copy being processed for Axe Acquisitions Order.
Edition 1st Touchstone hardcover ed.
Description xvii, 373 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., map, ports. ; 24 cm.
Note "A Touchstone Book"
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (p. 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.
Source NBK 4/13 PPL
Subject Women employees -- Tennessee -- Oak Ridge -- History -- 20th century.
Women -- Tennessee -- Oak Ridge -- Interviews.
Uranium enrichment -- History -- 20th century.
Official secrets -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Women -- Tennessee -- Oak Ridge.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Tennessee -- Oak Ridge.
Oak Ridge (Tenn.) -- History -- 20th century.
Oak Ridge (Tenn.) -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.
Oak Ridge (Tenn.) -- Biography.
ISBN 9781451617528
1451617526
9781451617542 (ebook)

 
    
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