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

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

Author: Denise Kiernan | Language: English | ISBN: B008J4GTU4 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Free Download
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The incredible 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 didn't 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 vibrant 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 didn't fully understand at the time--are still being felt today. In The Girls of Atomic City, Denise Kiernan traces the astonishing story of these unsung WWII workers through interviews with dozens of surviving women and other Oak Ridge residents. Like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, this is history and science made fresh and vibrant--a beautifully told, deeply researched story that unfolds in a suspenseful and exciting way.

As heard on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition.
One of Goodreads' Most Popular Books of March 2013.
One of Amazon's Editors' Picks for Best Books of the Month (History)
One of Amazon's Editors' Picks for Best Books of the Month (Nonfiction)
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File Size: 36002 KB
Print Length: 402 pages
Publisher: Touchstone; Reprint edition (March 5, 2013)
Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
Language: English
ASIN: B008J4GTU4
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
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Lending: Not Enabled
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,951 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #8
  in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Military > World War II
- #14
  in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical
- #16
  in Books > History > Americas > United States > State & Local
#8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Military > World War II
#14
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical
#16
in Books > History > Americas > United States > State & Local

Denise Kiernan has succeeded in her new book, "The Girls of Atomic City," to tell the story of Oak Ridge, TN, during the Manhattan Project in a way that is unique and gives insight until now hidden. Writers who have focused on this story before have either featured the technical details or have focused on the overall and truly amazing accomplishment that ended a World War having already killed 54,000,000 people! A great story, however, told.

But, Denise takes a much more intimate and personal approach to telling this amazing story in Oak Ridge (where 60% of the approximately $2 billion "Project" was spent) using the eyes (and memories) of some of the working ladies who actually did the real work of separating uranium (without knowing it), checking the leaks in pipes (not knowing where the pipes went), keeping the statistical data, doing the hard work of a janitor, a chemist (who got closest to the "product") and secretaries who saw documents they could never discuss. This approach results in a more realistic telling of the day to day activities in Oak Ridge and the government sites of X-10, Y-12, K-25 and S-50. The intrigue springs from every page!

The stories of these nine ladies, (Helen, Colleen, Celia, Toni, Jane, Kattie, Virginia, Dot and Rosemary), each unique, yet each holding much in common, is bound together by Denise's wonderfully talented skill as a writer. She paints a composite picture of Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project that will become a classic in the literature of this extraordinary historical accomplishment that has led to so many technological advances of the Nuclear Age.

This amazing world changing experiment was begun using many women from various backgrounds as workers.

I readily admit to my appalling lack of knowledge about WWII. When it comes to history my interest lies further back in time but I have found myself reading a fair bit about this war lately; it has become a popular period for writers of both fiction and non fiction. This particular book fascinated me because I knew absolutely nothing about the goings on in Oak Ridge, TN. I though all of the atomic "stuff" was done in New Mexico. Stupid me.

The US government went into Oak Ridge and bought up a huge swath of land and basically built a city into which hundreds of workers were brought to work on "the Project." Most of them were women as most of the men of the country were off fighting the war. They signed agreements that they would not talk about anything they did, saw or heard while there. They were provided housing, food, etc. It was a virtual enclosed world. Each employee had a badge allowing them entrance at certain points and access to certain areas.

The book chronicles the stories of a representative number of the various women that worked there. Each woman's tale is told from how she came to Oak Ridge, to what she did and how she interacted with the other women in the complex. The stories are fascinating and I must say that I was pulled in by the foreword. Ms. Kiernan's writing is so inviting you don't feel you are reading a non-fiction book. The women's lives are so very compelling. I must admit that one of the things that fascinates me about WWII/post WWII society are the attitudes towards women. They were expected to get married, stay home, etc. Then the war came and the men went off to fight and the women did their part by going off to work and work well. Then the men came home and the women were supposed to forget all they did and go back into the kitchen. Really?

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