NSF Workshop Generates Lively Discussion

AMSE Deputy Director Ken Mayes, author Andrew Brown, AHF President Cindy Kelly, and historian J. Samuel Walker at the workshop

On February 14-15, 2013, AHF hosted a workshop funded by the National Science Foundation, "Transforming the Relationship between Science and Society: Interpreting the Manhattan Project." The workshop featured humanities and informal science learning experts as well as representatives from Manhattan Project museums around the country. The National Park Service also participated in the workshop. Stephanie Toothman, NPS Associate Director for Cultural Resources, and Julia Washburn, NPS Associate Director for Interpretation and Education, spoke to the participants about interpreting controversial history.

AHF President Cindy Kelly, author Richard Rhodes, and J. Shipley Newlin of the Science Museum of Minnesota

 

The goal of the workshop was to discuss the impact of science on society using the Manhattan Project and its legacy as a case study. Thanks to excellent presentations by the participants and the spirited discussions that ensued, we have a clearer idea of the issues and perspectives that a national traveling exhibit should address. 

  

We will be uploading the video of the presentations delivered at the workshop to our YouTube page in the next few weeks, and will also make the transcript of theworkshop available. A report that distills the major recommendations and next steps will be available in June.

 

AHF to Record More Oral Histories

Physicists John Dunning, Enrico Fermi, and Dana P. Mitchell by the Columbia cyclotron. Photo courtesy of the AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives.

The Atomic Heritage Foundation is pleased to announce a $50,000 grant awarded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for "Preserving the Manhattan Project in Manhattan." Among other things, the grant funds are to take the oral histories of men and women who worked on the Manhattan Project in Manhattan.

If you are, or know, a Manhattan Project veteran who would like to be interviewed, especially one who worked in New York City, please contact our office at 202-293-0045 or  info@atomicheritage.org. 

Our tentative interview schedule is as follows:

March 28: Wyomissing, PA, to interview veterans including Lawrence O'Rourke, who worked on the gaseous diffusion method at the Nash Garage Building laboratory run by Columbia University. O'Rourke had previously conducted phone interviews with Michael Vickio of the Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association, which can be listened to on "Voices of the Manhattan Project." 

James Forde's ID from CBS, after the war.

April: Raleigh, NC, to interview veterans including James Forde, who was seventeen years old and the sole African-American working on the gaseous diffusion process in the Nash Garage Building.

April or May: Oak Ridge, TN, to interview veterans including William Tewes, who was a member of the SED and worked for Columbia University.

We hope to capture more oral histories of Manhattan Project veterans who worked in other sites as well. On March 24, in Delray, Florida, Cindy Kelly will interview James Schoke, who worked as a nuclear instrument specialist in the Manhattan Project and went on to become a pioneer in the nucleonics industry. We are currently applying for further grants to allow us to record more oral histories of Manhattan Project veterans nationwide and to support our work on "Voices of the Manhattan Project."

We added several terrific oral histories to "Voices of the Manhattan Project" last month.

Max Gittler and three other soldiers had the job of driving radioactive material from Oak Ridge to other Manhattan Project sites around the country, including Dayton, Chicago, Santa Fe (they were not allowed into Los Alamos), and the University of California-Berkeley. Although the radioactive material was encased in a small lead pot, it weighed nearly three thousand pounds. Gittler and the soldiers had to take turns driving in the truck with the material, so they would not be exposed to the radiation for too long.

Harris Harold Levee was in the Special Engineering Detachment at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago. He descibes Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard as "not two peas in a pod, one was a pea and one was a string bean." Levee's assignments included ensuring strict secrecy at the laboratory. Levee later worked on the construction of nuclear submarines. 

Evelyne Litz worked in health physics and as a librarian during the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. She was the second person, after her husband Lawrence Litz, to see metallic plutonium. She recalls the captivating beauty of Los Alamos; having and raising a daughter in the secret city; and the somber mood of the scientists of Los Alamos after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.

Lawrence Litz was a young physicist when he began working on radioactivity at the Met Lab. From there he was transferred to Los Alamos, where he worked on casting the plutonium hemispheres for the atomic bombs and became the first person to see metallic plutonium. He recalls the twenty-four-hour shift he pulled to cast two more plutonium hemispheres in case a third atomic bomb was needed to force the Japanese to surrender.

Thank you for your interest in the Manhattan Project and contributing to our efforts.