Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan ProjectThe public perception of the making of the atomic bomb is yet an image of the dramatic efforts of a few brilliant male scientists. However, the Manhattan Project was not just the work of a few and it was not just in Los Alamos. It was, in fact, a sprawling research and industrial enterprise that spanned the country from Hanford in Washington State to Oak Ridge in Tennessee, and the Met labs in Illinois. The Manhattan Project also included women in every capacity. During World War II the manpower shortages opened the laboratory doors to women and they embraced the opportunity to demonstrate that they, too, could do "creative science." Although women participated in all aspects of the Manhattan Project, their contributions are either omitted or only mentioned briefly in most histories of the project. It is this hidden story that is presented in Their Day in the Sun through interviews, written records, and photographs of the women who were physicists, chemists, mathematicians, biologists, and technicians in the labs. Authors Ruth H. Howes and Caroline L. Herzenberg have uncovered accounts of the scientific problems the women helped solve as well as the opportunities and discrimination they faced. Their Day in the Sun describes their abrupt recruitment for the war effort and includes anecdotes about everyday life in these clandestine improvised communities. A chapter about what happened to the women after the war and about their attitudes now, so many years later, toward the work they did on the bomb is included. |
Contents
Pioneers in Nuclear Science | 20 |
The Physicists | 35 |
The Chemists | 67 |
Mathematicians and Calculators | 93 |
Biologists and Medical Scientists | 115 |
The Technicians | 132 |
Other Women of the Manhattan Project | 152 |
After the War | 181 |
in the Manhattan Project | 203 |
Other editions - View all
Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project Ruth Hege Howes,Caroline L. Herzenberg No preview available - 1999 |
Common terms and phrases
Alamos American Argonne National Laboratory Army assigned atomic bomb atomic piles became Berkeley biology calculations calutrons chain reaction chemical chemist Chemistry Division civilian Clinton colleagues College construction Eleanor elements Engineer enriched Enrico Fermi experiments explosion female scientists Groves Hanford hattan Project Health Division Hinton hired Hiroshima husband implosion Irčne Joliot-Curie isotope Joan Hinton joined Joliot-Curie junior Kathren Lab laboratory assistant Lab technician laboratory assistant diener later leaders Lefkowitz Lise Meitner Livesay machines Manhattan Project Marie Curie married mathematics McKibbin Meitner Met Lab military needed neutrons nium Nobel nuclear fission nuclei Oak Ridge operation Oppenheimer personnel Ph.D physicist physics plant plutonium polonium produced radiation radioactive reactor received recruited research assistant Rona samples Santa Fe scientific/technical worker Seaborg secretary separation Serber staff studies technical theoretical tion Trinity test University of Chicago uranium versity WACs wartime weapon wives woman Women of Science young
Popular passages
Page 239 - Anslow (1892-1969)" in Women in Chemistry and Physics: A Biobibliographic Sourcebook, edited by Louise S. Grinstein, Rose K. Rose, and Miriam H. Rafailovich. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Folkart, Bruce. A. (November 13, 1986). "Leona Marshall Libby Dies; Sole Woman to Work on Fermi's 1st Nuclear Reactor.
Page 239 - The Research School of Marie Curie in the Paris Faculty, 1907-14.