The Girls of Atomic City

In 1944, Rome is liberated, Normandy is stormed, but the “situation in the Pacific continue[s] to escalate” (134). Americans are “making do everywhere” but those at CEW do so “while managing round-the-clock work schedules and living behind armed gates amid legions of rumored informants” (134). This results in “a potent mix of anxiety and inspiration” and morale fluctuates. Those in charge realize that the CEW workers need recreational activities to occupy their time.

Of course, organized groups from outside the Reservation would be a security risk so these activities have to be organized in-house and soon “the enterprising, hardworking, and optimistic among residents [begin] creating their own activities to fill the void” (136). Before long, options include “beer taverns, a drive-in, miniature gold, roller skating, and trampoline tumbling” as well as well as numerous sports clubs, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, music societies, a concert band, and a symphony conducted by a biochemist, gardening clubs, and even “the Rabbit Breeders Association” (136).

Dances are especially popular, and many women wear “boots to wade through the mud, then [change] into more fetching shoes upon arrival at the dance” (137). Numerous tricks are employed to recreate popular fashion without access to the supplies limited by rationing. Colleen tries to never miss a dance and is growing closer to Blackie, who impresses her with a gift of rare Ivory Flakes washing soap. Helen is less interested in dances and romance than she is with recruiting girls for the Y-12 basketball team and playing softball, reveling in the quality of the equipment she now has access to.

Religious services are also of great importance, giving a sense of community and security. The Chapel on the Hill is meant to serve 29 different religious groups with numerous services and activities packed into its full schedule. Other services take place in rec halls around the reservation, which sometimes means “kicking a bottle or two out of the way and erasing reminders of the previous night’s diversions to make way for the present day’s devotions” (142). Alcohol is strictly limited to “3.2 percent beer, a staple of military life and Army posts” although the town’s young people easily find ways round this, taking trips to nearby clubs, homebrewing wine under the mass-produced porches, or buying moonshine from locals.

Happy Valley even has its own amusement park called Coney Island, which provides “an oddly magical setting, the playful suspension of responsibility in the shadows of the most massive industrial war plants ever constructed” (142). However, most recreation is still segregated. Black residents cannot attend the movie theaters or use the swimming pool—the largest in the country. There are “movements afoot to try and change the living conditions for black workers at CEW” (145), including the formation of the Colored Camp Council which argues, among other things, for “family homes separate from labor camps and similar in amenities to the white family homes” (145). Unfortunately, those who sign a letter making this request, noting “the patriotism and sacrifices of the black community” (145), find themselves “on the receiving end of a robust background check, but no new homes” (146).

Neighboring communities are often unfriendly to the workers of CEW and frequently overcharge them for goods and services. Part of this is a reflection of resentment for the displacement of the site’s original residents, but there is also a suspicion that “the CEW [is] getting more than their fair share of rationed goods” (146). The nearby townspeople know that Celia works at the CEW and make her wait in line or deny her goods that they claim to be saving for others. She is learning to adapt to her financial independence, insisting on splitting the bill when eating with Henry.

Maintaining secrecy is difficult at the Project but the General believes that compartmentalization is essential. He follows the rule that “Each man should know everything he [needs] to know to do his job and nothing else” (152). Residents are heavily screened, with the head of the medical section later clarifying the procedure: “Were they crooks, drug addicts, homosexuals or things like that? We were not worried about those particular items, per se, but the fact that they would be vulnerable to pressure which might make them likely to say things that they shouldn’t if they were blackmailed” (153). Dealing with the press is also extremely difficult, the Project works directly with “the Office of Censorship and also individual editors” in order to restrict publication of “anything that would disclose vital information or draw unnecessary attention to the Project” (154). 

Frances Smith Gates, editor of the Oak Ridge Journal, finds press restrictions to the site “trickier to maneuver than most” (156) and quickly learns that “even the most innocuous stories could be viewed as a security threat” (157). Secrecy and security are part of the other women’s lives too. Helen witnesses two women being escorted from the workplace never to return. Celia receives an unexpected request from her mother to “stop writing home” because “I just can’t understand your letters” (161). Celia later learns that her letters have been censored with “big, black bars” (161).

Not knowing exactly what happens to those who break the rules leaves residents uneasy and information officers create rumors that “subversives or dismissed workers [can] not only be fired but then be immediately drafted and dropped in the South Pacific” (162). However, for some, the “heightened restrictions also [offer] a sense of security […] [and] a sense that someone might not just be watching you, but watching out for you, as well” (163). Dot does not feel this way when she is approached by a date’s boss who tells her “I don’t want you to see him anymore” (164). Dot’s experience is not unique. Many workers are closely monitored and “the General occasionally [even has] his top scientists tailed” (174). Despite security efforts, a number of spies are gathering information for “interested parties overseas” (175).

Propaganda in the town ranges “from inspirational, up-by-the-bootstraps images designed to inspire patriotism and responsibility to ominous images depicting death by enemy hands, or losses on the battle front resulting from a moment’s indiscretion” (165). Common messages stress loyalty, allegiance, and patriotism but also stoke fear and paranoia. Beyond this, there are also “plainclothes agents” and “informal creeps” (167) operating within the Reservation in unknown, undisclosed numbers. This means that “anyone you [meet], anyone you [pass] on the street, anyone you [befriend] could be reporting your conversations and activities” (167) and a report from them could have you and your family evicted from your home “within 24 hours” (168). Despite this security, Kattie uses her new biscuit tins to cook food in Willie’s hutment and, in exchange for a couple of “contraband biscuits,” the guards no longer hassle her (170). 

Jane’s colleagues manage to send her a secret message of office gossip and well-wishes, written on carefully rolled tape and sent “within an empty and innocent-looking box of Monarch Standard-Width Staples” (176) while she is away visiting relatives in New York. She laughs when she reads “the dateline: Oak Ridge. Wherever that is…” (177). Such humor is one of the ways the workers cope with the difficulties of their situation. Dances are another, and Toni particularly enjoys an outdoor dance in October 1944 where she meets a young solider named Chuck reassigned to the project. Despite the difference in their background—she is native to the region and he is from Queens—she finds herself “becoming more smitten” (180) with him. Rosemary also begins a new relationship. Her young man is mysterious and often leaves town with little notice and without being able to say when he will be back. She wonders if he might be an intelligence agent.

Such secrecy can be taxing, especially for spouses who now find themselves shut out of their partners lives. Some housewives begin meeting for afternoons of “darning socks or sharing favorite recipes” in a social setting but even this is treated with suspicion by guards (184). The on-site head of psychiatric services, Dr. Clarke, finds that such restraints add to the psychological issues suffered by the residents and workers, along with the “difficulties of housekeeping and the inability of mothers to get away from the constant care of children” (185). Clarke notes that this is compounded by the “uneasiness that result[s] from working so hard, for so long, under such secretive conditions” and “neurotic reactions due to fatigue are appearing frequently” (185). He sets up a small psychiatric ward.

Virginia largely enjoys her work, however, finding the lab to be largely social and friendly. Nearby, her friend Jane works on calculations, Dot and Helen guide the Tubealloy production, Colleen tests pipe seals at K-25, and Kattie cleans and shines “acres of floors and towers of tanks” (189). The women are brought together by both war effort and the Tubealloy itself. Their efforts are having mean that the Project is progressing and the Engineer and the General believe that the Gadget—that is, an atomic bomb—will be ready by August of 1945. 

Celia marries Henry in January 1945 and they move in together. Henry wants to start a family immediately, and Celia is soon pregnant and no longer working. Waiting at home, she regularly receives calls informing her that her new husband needs to work late. Sometimes it takes two days for him to return and even Henry does not understand what he was working on. Rosemary also moves into a new home when. However, not long after moving in, her boss informs her that she has to move out to accommodate “a mentally ill patient” who needs to be “contained” (197).

Rosemary had already heard that “someone highly agitated had been admitted, someone rambling about his job, talking about things he shouldn’t have been talking about” (198). While Dr. Clarke finds that the population of CEW was uncurious, some people “with basic paranoid tendencies” were agitated by the environment. Rosemary soon finds herself back in the apartment as part of the team administering shock treatments to the patient.

In spring 1945, Kattie is startled by a “deafening” incredible noise in K-25 (201). Although she fears that something has gone wrong, it turns out the she has “spent months cleaning a factory that wasn’t fully operational” (202) and this is the sound of it coming completely online. From then on, she has to “scream and yell at the top of her lungs just to be heard by coworkers who [are] standing on the other side of the huge steel tanks” (203). Productivity is increasing at Y-12 as well and Virginia’s supervisor is delighted with the results of her latest sample.

Outside the project, the “‘everything’s going in and nothing’s coming out’ joke [hasn’t] died down […] [but] only become less amusing” and people start to wonder if the “city behind the fences [isn’t] anything more than a massive failure—or worse, some sort of intricate swindle at the expense of taxpaying Americans” (205). However, those in the know recognize that real progress is being made and “a fairly regular stream of Product [is] now heading to the scientists at Site Y” (206). There is some concern about the way this new element is “feisty, very active, and pose[s] potential health problems, the extent of which [are] still being calculated” (207).