The girls of Atomic City : the untold story of the women who helped win World War II Cover Image

Book

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

Summary:

At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians--many of them young women from small towns across America--were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. That is, until the end of the war--when Oak Ridge's secret was revealed. Drawing on the voices of the women who lived it--women who are now in their eighties and nineties--The Girls of Atomic City rescues a remarkable, forgotten chapter of American history from obscurity.

Record details

ISBN: 9781451617535
ISBN: 9781451617528
Physical Description: xvii, 373 pages : map, portraits, facsimiles, photographs ; 23 cm
Edition: First Touchstone hardcover edition.
Publisher: New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2013.

Content descriptions

General Note:	"A Touchstone Book." Publisher, publishing date and paging may vary.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-347) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	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.