The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

by Denise Kiernan

  Relocation of MED headquarters to Tennessee from author interviews and Groves, Nichols, and Smyth (all previously cited).

  Information regarding recruitment, including labor piracy and segregation, from Russell B. Olwell’s At Work in the Atomic City: A Labor and Social History of Oak Ridge, Tennessee (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004); City Behind a Fence and Atomic Spaces (previously cited); Victory at Home: Manpower and Race in the American South During World War II, by Charles D. Chamberlain (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2003); Challenges in recruitment and need for workers from Road to Trinity, Atomic Spaces, At Work in the Atomic City, City Behind a Fence, and Now it Can Be Told (all previously cited), and The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb, F. G. Gosling (Washington, DC: US Department of Energy, 2005).

  Dedication of the Chapel on the Hill from City Behind a Fence (previously cited).

  SED description from interviews with William Tewes, Colleen Black, and “Scientists in Uniform: The Special Engineer Detachment” (Los Alamos National Security, LLC, U.S. 2010–2011); “Special Engineer Detachment” (Y-12 National Security Complex, US Department of Energy); “The Unsung Heroes of the Manhattan Project,” by Beverly Majors, The Oak Ridger, December 27, 2010. Executive Order 8802: “Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry” was issued by President Roosevelt. Executive Order 8802 dated June 25, 1941, General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

  Description of black hutment area from author interviews with Kattie Strickland, Valeria Steele Roberson, also Atomic Spaces, City Behind a Fence (previously cited). Regarding J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.: Letter from Edward Teller to Harold Urey, dated September 18, 1944. Formerly Declassified Correspondence, 1942–1947; Records of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Record Group 228; National Archives at Atlanta; National Archives and Records Administration.

  Additional information about Christmas toy rations from It’s a Wonderful Christmas: The Best of the Holidays 1940–1954, by Susan Waggoner (New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2004); and the Lionel Corporation.

  Tubealloy: Lise and Fission, 1938

  There are two comprehensive biographies of Lise Meitner: Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics, by Ruth Lewis Sime (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996); Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, by Patricia Rife (Boston: Birkhauser, 1999). Also “Looking Back,” by Lise Meitner, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1964; “A Nobel tale of wartime injustice,” by Elisabeth Crawford, Ruth Lewin Sime, and Mark Walker, Nature, vol. 382, August 1, 1996. Meitner’s excursion with her nephew is described in Rhodes (previously cited), and The Uranium People, by Leona Marshall Libby (New York: Crane, Russak. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979).

  Information regarding Hahn’s dismissal of Noddack’s theory from Proposer of Nuclear Fission and Devotion to Their Science (both previously cited). Hahn and Strassmann’s paper: “Concerning the Existence of Alkaline Earth Metals Resulting from Neutron Irradiation of Uranium,” O. Hahn and F. Strassmann, Naturwissenschaften, Jan. 1939, vol. 27, p. 11. Meitner and Frisch’s paper: “Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: A New Type of Nuclear Reaction,” Lise Meitner and Otto R. Frisch, Nature, Feb. 11, 1939, 143, 239–240. Information regarding Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Albert Einstein and letter to Roosevelt from Groves, Nichols, and many others. This letter, from Einstein to President Roosevelt, is widely considered to be the crucial piece of correspondence that started the United States research into atomic weapons. Evolution of Manhattan Project names and designations and funding from Smyth and Jones (both previously cited).

  4. Bull Pens and Creeps: The Project’s Welcome for New Employees

  I met Virginia Coleman through Bobbie Martin, an active member of the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association (ORHPA). I took to her immediately and was moved by both her brilliance and kindness. She opened her home to me, gave her time to me. I am constantly amazed when I hear of the latest class she’s taking, often science-based and intimidating to people who are a third her age.

  Information regarding the “bull pen” comes from author interviews and “Manhattan Project Autobiography,” by John Googin, For Your Information, vol. 6, Issue 1 (Oak Ridge: Y-12 Pride in Development, April 1994). Resident Handbook courtesy of personal papers of Jane Puckett.

  Information regarding background checks from Groves, Nichols, At Work, and City Behind a Fence previously cited. Locksmith anecdote and admonition for asking questions during training from “A Scientist and his Secrets” (Keim, previously cited).

  Training questions and vague consequences from author interviews and Gailar (previously cited).

  I first met Dot in the lobby of Greenfield Retirement in Oak Ridge, the same day I met Colleen. Dot is hilarious and has a tremendous self-deprecating sense of humor about both her upbringing and her time at Oak Ridge. Evenings spent with her and Colleen have been some of my favorites.

  Helen, too, was one of the earlier women I interviewed. She has a dry, no-nonsense sense of humor and a scrapbook full of photos of her in her basketball uniform and news articles from her many games.

  Information about ACME insurance Company envelopes from author interviews, notably William J. Wilcox Jr.

  Tubealloy: Leona and Success in Chicago, December 1942

  Information regarding the party at the Fermi home, the day of the reaction, past information about the Fermi family, and Leona Woods from The Uranium People (previously cited), and Atoms in the Family: My Life With Enrico Fermi, by Laura Fermi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954). There are numerous descriptions of the events of December 2, 1942, and most books already cited here include descriptions and were consulted.

  For descriptions of the size and scope of CP-1 from “Piglet and the Pumpkin Field,” Argonne National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, http://www.ne.anl.gov/About/legacy/piglet.shtml; “The First Reactor” (Washington, DC: US Department of Energy, December 1982); and from Making of the Atomic Bomb (previously cited). Description of Leona Woods’s contribution to the pile from Uranium People. Fermi description of fission from The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses, and Historians, edited by Cynthia C. Kelly (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007).

  5. Only Temporary: Spring into Summer, 1944

  I first met Colleen in the lobby of Greenfield Retirement Living. I was there with Ray Smith, who had brought me to meet former Y-12 Supervisor Connie Bolling, who passed away not long after our interview. When we met, Colleen was wearing a blinking Christmas light necklace. She is dynamic and nonstop.

  Colleen and others provide recipes—one which she got that very day on line at the shower—in Cooking Behind the Fence: Recipes and Recollections from the Oak Ridge ’43 Club, Cookbook Chairman, Colleen Black (Oak Ridge: Oak Ridge Heritage & Preservation Association, 5th edition, 2009). If you were a decent shot, squirrels made for a quick meal in those days of meat rations. Four legs and two back pieces got a quick dredging in flour, salt, and pepper. Brown the lot in a cast-iron pan with a touch of shortening. Maybe make a little gravy from the drippings.

  Description of Happy Valley from author interviews, predominantly with Colleen Black, also “Oak Ridge’s Lost City,” by William J. Wilcox Jr. Location and layout of Clinton Engineer Works as a whole, and Townsite specifically, including maps, construction progress, and contractual relations with Stone & Webster and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and the Pierce Foundation from the Department of Energy’s The Manhattan Project (previously cited). Construction and planning of the Clinton Engineer Works from Groves, Nichols, Rhodes, US Department of Energy, Hales, and Johnson/Jackson (all previously cited).

  Certificate of Availability program (sometimes referred to as Statement of Availability) information from author interviews with Colleen Black, and Code of Federal Regulations of the United States of America: 1944 Supplement, Titles 11–32, by Office of the Federal Register (Washington,
DC: US Government Printing Office).

  Regarding phone calls: Colleen told a very funny story about visiting the home of a woman privileged to have her own phone. She had taken to hiding her phone under a small cardboard box to avoid constant requests from neighbors and friends to use it. During Colleen’s visit, the phone rang.

  And rang.

  And rang.

  The hostess tried in vain to ignore the sound until finally, one of the other guests chirped, “Your box is ringing.”

  Demand for workers, War Power Commission demands, and worker turnover rates from At Work in the Atomic City, Atomic Spaces, and City Behind a Fence. Information on the Brown-Patterson Agreement and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is from Groves, Jones, and Hales (all previously cited). Description of housing—all, including trailers, barracks, dorms, and homes—from author interviews, and Early Oak Ridge Housing: Photographs, Floor Plans and General Descriptions (no date), Robinson, and City Behind a Fence (both previously cited). Information on services, including laundry, is from author interviews, Resident Handbook (previously cited), Robinson, and City Behind a Fence. Information on Roane-Anderson from author interviews, Groves, Nichols, City Behind a Fence, Hales, and Robinson (all previously cited).

  Dr. Eric Kent Clarke’s perspectives from “Report on Existing Psychiatric Facilities and Suggested Necessary Addition,” Dr. Eric Kent Clarke, chief psychiatrist, Formerly Declassified Correspondence, 1942–1947; Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Record Group 326; National Archives at Atlanta: National Archives and Records Administration.

  Negro Village information from author interviews and City Behind a Fence, At Work in the Atomic City, and Atomic Spaces, all previously cited. Treatment of black residents and complaints of mistreatment from Formerly Declassified Correspondence, 1942–1947; Records of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Record Group 228; National Archives at Atlanta; National Archives and Records Administration. Anecdote about “good girls” and “bad girls” from Nichols (previously cited).

  Tubealloy: The Quest for Product

  Sources of uranium from Nichols and Groves, previously cited. Regarding Eldorado, Mallinckrodt, Westinghouse, Ames, and Harshaw, from Smyth Report, Groves and Nichols (previously cited), from Office of Legacy Management, United States Department of Energy. Letter from United States Atomic Energy Commission from Glenn Seaborg, chairman, to Mr. Harold E. Thayer, president, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, from “Mallinckrodt Chemical works: The Uranium Story,” collection, The Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association, Inc. http://www.mphpa.org/classic/CP/Mallinckrodt/Pages/MALK_Gallery_01.htm, last accessed June 2012. Regarding Harshaw, from “Nuclear Fallout in Cleveland,” by James Renner, The Independent, March 3, 2010. Additional companies involved in the processing of various uranium compounds at different stages include Metal Hydrides Co., Electromet, Linde, DuPont, ALCOA, and others, via Smyth and Groves (previously cited).

  Description of various incarnations of uranium from author interviews, notably with William J. Wilcox Jr., also the Smyth Report (previously cited). Descriptions of sites, their purposes, construction timetables from Groves, Nichols, Rhodes (all previously cited); “An Overview of the History of Y-12: 1942–1992: A Chronology of Some Noteworthy Events and Memoirs” (The Secret City Store, 2001); “The Role of Oak Ridge in the Manhattan Project,” by William J. Wilcox Jr. (Oak Ridge: 2002); “K-25: A Brief History of the Manhattan Project’s ‘Biggest’ Secret,” by William J. Wilcox Jr. (Oak Ridge, 2011).

  Information regarding uranium slugs and the Aluminum Company of America from “A Short History of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (1943–1993),” by the Office of Science, Oak Ridge National Lab Laboratory, US Department of Energy; http://www.ornl.gov/info/swords/swords.shtml, last accessed June 2012.

  Status of Project, expenses, and construction timetable from Nichols and Groves (previously cited), and description of K-25 from Nichols, Groves, and Wilcox. Information regarding gaseous diffusion process and difficulties with barrier material from Groves. The path of the uranium through the K-25 structure, according to Wilcox: Uranium started in the Feed Building and was pumped first into the east wing of the U-shaped structure.

  Information regarding electromagnetic separation process and Ernest Lawrence from author interviews, the Smyth Report, Wilcox, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 9531, Nichols, Groves, Groueff, Rhodes, and Googin. Code names for various compounds from author interviews, Smithsonian, and Googin (previously cited). Additional information regarding uranium recovery from the calutrons via Groves, Nichols, and Wilcox. Bill Wilcox walked me through this process, and Jane Puckett’s notes helped as well. Uranium was recovered from the boxes by washing with a nitric acid solution. It then had to be extracted from the poisonous, acidic blue-green solution, then put through the chemical paces to turn it into uranium tetrachloride (UC14) for the Beta process. It was eventually oxidized into UO4 (which looks a lot like cheesecake), then 723 (UO3, a yellowish powder); then eventually chlorine found its way back into the recipe. This resulted initially in 745 (UC15), and then after sublimation—going from solid to gas without passing through a pesky liquid phase, like dry ice in a Halloween punch—the uranium was UC14 again. This, in time for round two, the Beta process.

  Purchasing of silver from US Treasury from author interviews, Nichols, Groves, and Making the Atomic Bomb, by the DOE (previously cited), Rhodes, and “14,700 tons of silver at Y-12,” by the Y-12 National Security Complex, US Department of Energy. As the calutrons were taken out of commission and dismantled, the silver borrowed from the U.S. Treasury was returned bit by bit to the government, with the final repayment arriving in 1970. Only about four hundredths of 1 percent was missing. Cameron Reed’s article “From Treasury Vault to the Manhattan Project,” in the January-February 2011 issue of American Scientist offers a detailed look at the story of Oak Ridge’s silver. Information regarding Tennessee Eastman and lack of workers from Nichols, Groves, Wilcox, and Making the Atomic Bomb (DOE). Doubling of Y-12, shutting down of Y-12 in 1943, increased estimates of U-235 needed for the bomb, catering anecdote from Groves. Board feet used for Y-12 from Making the Atomic Bomb, DOE (previously cited). Information regarding naming plants from Letter to Gus Robinson from Leslie Groves, dated October 14, 1949, Formerly Declassified Correspondence, 1942–1947; Records of the Atomic Energy Commission, Record Group 326; National Archives at Atlanta; National Archives and Records Administration.

  Background information on Evelyn Handcock Ferguson and Harold Kingsley Ferguson from “Ferguson Builds War Plants Fast,” by the Associated Press, as seen in Charleston News and Courier, November 22, 1942; “Rites Tomorrow for H. K. Ferguson,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 10, 1943. Information regarding Phil Abelson and decision to pursue liquid thermal diffusion from Groves, and Making the Atomic Bomb (DOE). Information regarding meeting between Evelyn Ferguson and Groves from Groves, Smyth, and Groueff.

  6. To Work

  Y-12 contest information and efficiency of female workers from author interviews and Nichols (previously cited).

  Description of roles of women workers, PSQs, workplace activity from author interviews. Y-12 information, including bus fare and rates, from author interviews, Oak Ridge Journal, Robinson and Googin. Additional information regarding commuting times for cubicle operators to Y-12 from George Akin’s paper “Eastman at Oak Ridge,” published in 1981 and found in box 7, folder 27 of the “Club” collection in the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation at the University of Rochester. Anecdotes regarding buses from author interviews. Description of badges and guards from author interviews, City Behind a Fence, At Work in the Atomic City, and Robinson. Changing house information from author interviews. Description of cubicle control rooms from author interviews, photographs by Ed Westcott (NARA Still Pictures Division, Washington, DC), and At Work in the Atomic City. Number of women in control room and description of panels from author interviews, photographs by Ed Westcot
t (previously cited), author visits to Y-12, cubicle exhibit, American Museum of Science and Energy (Oak Ridge), Smithsonian Oral Histories (previously cited).

  Description of Es, Qs, Rs, etc. from author interviews, Googin, Smithsonian (previously cited), papers of Jane Puckett, “Lawrence and His Laboratory: A Historian’s View of the Lawrence Years, Episode 2: The Calutron,” by J. L. Heilbron, Robert W. Seidel, and Bruce R. Wheaton, Newsmagazine, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, 1981.

  Information about cleaning out of E boxes from author interviews with Wilcox; yellowcake from Virginia Coleman. Anecdote regarding Mellor’s Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry from Googin. Codes from author interviews, Smithsonian, and Googin. Information regarding preparation 38 from Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy, by Per F. Dahl (London: Institute of Physics, 1999). Number of buildings in Y-12 complex from Rhodes.

  Information regarding calculators from author interviews, notably Jane Puckett. Description of Jane’s process notes, job description, pay rate and titles from personal papers of Jane Puckett.

  Information regarding Clock Alley from author interviews, At Work in the Atomic City, and Atomic Spaces.

  Author note: I have read in several places that Clock Alleys were segregated. However, Kattie clearly remembers being on line to clock in with both white and black workers. Work song from interview with Kattie Strickland and from Negro Work Songs and Calls, edited by B. A. Botkin (Washington, DC: Archive of Folk Song, Folk Music of the United States, Music Division, Recording Laboratory AFS L8, Library of Congress). Information regarding transfer of train personnel at Reservation boundary from Robinson.

  K-25 pipe conditioning information from author interviews with Colleen Black. Description of the floor from author interviews and photographs by Ed Westcott (previously cited). Glyptal information from author interview and Glyptal/General Electric magazine ad (1943).