Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan Mid-September/October Book Club Online

[JoanP]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome to join in!

Everyone is welcome!

 

The Girls of Atomic City                            
by Denise Kiernan

Based on first-person interviews with women who served at Oak Ridge, several of them now now in their eighties and nineties, Denise Kiernan  tells the  true story of young women during World War II who worked in a secret city dedicated to making fuel for the first atomic bomb—only they didn’t know that. At the dawn of the atomic age, the community of Oak Ridge, Tenn., rose up around the secret work taking place there in support of the war effort.  At the heart of those efforts were thousands of women from across the country who did their part to help secure the United States while maintaining a public silence.  They all knew something big was happening at Oak Ridge, but few could piece together the true nature of their work until the bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, and the secret was out. The shocking revelation: the residents Chicken Oak Ridge were enriching uranium for the atomic bomb.  They had NO idea!

DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:

September 15-21~ Introduction & Revelation, August 1945;
   Chapters 1, 2, 3  (62 pages)
September 22-28 ~ TUBEALLOY, 1938
   Chapters 4,5
Sept. 29- Oct. 5 ~ TUBEALLOY, The Quest for Product
   Chapters 6, TUBEALLOY, The Couriers, Chapter 7
Oct 6-12 ~ TUBEALLOY, (p 151) Security, Censorship, The Press
   Chapters 8, TUBEALLOY, Pumkins, Spies, and Chicken Soup; Chapter 9,
   TUBEALLOY, Combining Efforts in the New Year; Chapter 10 (to pg. 204)
Oct 13-19 ~ TUBEALLOY, (p 205) The Project's Crucial Spring;
   Chapter 11; TUBEALLOY, Hope and the Haberdasher, April-May, 1945; Chapter 12,
   Chapter 13 (to pg. 268)
Oct 20-? Chapter 14, 15, Epilogue


RELEVANT LINKS:
An Interview with Denise Kiernan  about Atomic City girls; Part 2 Interview with Denise Kiernan;
2013 Interview with Celia Klemski; Interview with Kattie Strickland, resident of Oak Ridge in 2005

For Your Consideration
October 20-?

Chapter14 ~ Dawn of a Thousand Suns

1. When the Oak Ridge mission was first disclosed, most of the workers were astonished.  How are their reactions evolving as they process the news more fully?
2. What new uncertainties and life choices did the workers face now?
 
Chapter 15 ~ Life in the New Age

1.  As the details of the bomb’s damage came out, people were horrified.  How did that affect the workers’ final feelings about what they had done?
2.  What changes were made to adapt atomic energy for peaceful purposes?  What legislation was passed to control it?
3.  How were the Black workers who stayed on at Oak Ridge treated?
4.  Lise Meitner was passed over for the Nobel Prize.  Was this fair?  Does Kiernan give an accurate picture of the importance of the women scientists?
5.  What finally happened to the people we’ve been following?

Epilogue
1.  “The challenge in telling the story of the atomic bomb is one of nuance, requiring thought and sensitivity and walking a line between commemoration and celebration.”  Has Kiernan done a good job of this?

DLs:  JoanP, Marcie, PatH,
 

[bellamarie]

“The challenge in telling the story of the atomic bomb is one of nuance, requiring thought and sensitivity and walking a line between commemoration and celebration.”  Has Kiernan done a good job of this?

I personally feel D.K. has done as good a job as any, to capture the feelings of the people at Oak Ridge, once they learned of what they were working on, and the destruction it caused.  All over the country there were celebrations, because the war ended.  I think the people in Oak Ridge probably dealt with the knowledge much more difficult than the average American, who had nothing to do with creating the bomb.

I really am glad I read this book, and was a part of the discussion.  Whether we agree or disagree with what content was in the book, whether it seemed a bit redundant, D.K. gave us first hand knowledge from these women who survived working at the plants, and are still living, some seventy years later.  This book took me on a Google search, to learn even more than was covered in this book.  For that, I am thankful, I would never have picked this book up on my own to just read by myself. 

I loved D.K.'s ending......  As I drive away from Oak Ridge, I cross back over the Clinch, the sheer curtain of pinkish-gray evening settling on the its waters, no pearls sleeping in the beds.  I leave my dinner with Virginia behind, thinking of her and other women's journeys across the river in a much different time during a very different war.  I have no answers as I head east deeper into the secret-shrouded shadow of the mountains.  I roll down the window and wash my hands in the clouds.


I have traveled over Clinch mountain many times in my years being married, with my Mom sitting in the back seat of our small hornet wagon, with my three small children.  That mountain before they blasted through it and made it much wider, was truly a scary time, with such a huge drop, and such a narrow road of nothing but curves that could not been seen to anticipate ahead of you.  I remember as we drove through the mountain, my mother who talks non-stop while in the car would go silent.  I knew she was a bit fearful. I always helped my hubby who was driving stay alert, and prayed silently, Our Father who art in Heaven........   I sense if D.K. is a prayerful person, she too would be saying a little prayer for all those women and residents of Oak Ridge, Tenn., as she washed her hands in the clouds.

[PatH]

Does Kiernan give an accurate picture of the importance of the women scientists?

I might as well answer my own question.  I think she is accurate.  Kiernan wants to tell the story from the viewpoint of women, so she picks out women scientists to follow, but she doesn't fall into the trap of making them seem more important than they were.  They were just as important as the men, not more or less.  Lise Meitner's insight was a crucial part of the picture.  Ida Noddack's work was important too.  Leona was just one more person being mentored by Fermi.

It wasn't fair for Meitner not to share the Nobel Prize.  It happens sometimes that when several people are responsible for a breakthrough, one of them gets left out of the prize.  Scientists like to speculate on reasons, but somehow it seems to happen more to women.

[JoanP]

I was thinking too,  that this sort of thing was more common in the 40's, Pat - when women did not have the voice, the support they (we)  have now.  I suppose you could say the same thing for the Blacks.  Things slowly improved after the war years, didn't they?  (okay, I said "slowly."

You asked about the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.  Reading of the 18 people who were imjected with with plutonium between 1945 and 47.  What was that about?  And the thousands of human radiation expericments in '45 and '46.  That couldn't have had anything to do with the Gadget.  I'm hoping it was to test the use of radiation for medical purposes.  That would have been a beneficial use of atomic energy...

Still thinking about further use of the atomic bomb - and some questions coming about the H bomb.  They are the ones we feared in elementary school in the late 40's.  Remember hiding under your desk, protecting your head?  Were we doing "Bert the Turtle"  and Duck and Cover?

[PatH]

JoanP, your remark about radiation experiments reminded me of a minor character who deserves an exit line--Ebb Cade.  He's the Black worker injured in an automobile accident, with multiple fractures.  They saw their chance, and injected him with Plutonium to see where it went.  Then, although they set most of his fractures, they delayed on the legs, to give themselves options on how to proceed.  Cade's teeth were bad, and they pulled 15 of them, no doubt some of them appropriately, but they were after seeing where the Plutonium went.  (It does go to bones and teeth.)  Finally they set his legs.  Soon after that he disappeared--not in his room, not checked out.  No one seems to know what happened, but 8 years later someone saw an obituary of an Ebb Cade who turned out to be the same man, died at age 61, cause of death listed as heart disease.  Who knows if the Plutonium played a part, but at least he knew enough to make a break for it as soon as he could.

[JoanP]

You have to wonder how much freedom was given to those who conducted these experiments - as those conducted on Ebb Cade. It's almost as if they answered to no one.

But when I was reading of the radiation injections, I immediately thought of the care I received following my bout with breast cancer this past Spring.  The radiation following surgery was over in five days...with just the right amount of radiation administered each day.
I wondered how many experiments were performed before the safe levels were determined.

[marcie]

I too was wondering what objectives the plutonium injections were serving. Who was in charge of the experiments? The last chapter says that 18 people (that we know of) were injected with plutonium, including Ebb Cade and that "several thousand human radiation experiments were conducted between 1944 and 1974."

There is a brief history of radiation therapy at http://healthsciences.ucsd.edu/som/radiation-medicine/about/Pages/history-radiation-therapy.aspx

There is a very disturbing article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States#Human_radiation_experiments

These articles are far beyond the scope of the book we've been reading.

[PatH]

Marcie, that Wikipedia article might be well outside the scope of the book, but it's important to know that this sort of thing happened.  It's appalling to think of that sort of callousness toward people who, because they were poor, or ignorant, or Black, or prisoners were regarded as fair game.

Could that sort of thing happen now?  I don't think it could.  It's too far outside what anyone thinks of as decent or ethical.  When I worked at NIH, nothing I did impacted patients in any way, but I still had to take a short medical ethics course which spelled out the rules, and used some of the things in the article as bad examples.  They're all classics, Tuskegee and Willowbrook especially.

[marcie]

Pat, I googled just to see if there is evidence of misleading (or illegal) human experimentation today and found an article at http://www.wncn.com/story/21750744/patient-seeking-2-million-in-epa-human-experimentation-case about an EPA case in 2013. I don't know if the case has been resolved. It was an ongoing investigation at the time.

[JoanP]

I get the impression that the experimentation that went on...and still goes on today - is not done with evil intentions - but rather with overzealous desire to use the results to cure illusive ills, the cure which  always seemed to be just around the corner. Though the selection of subjects for experimentation - without their knowledge was reprehensible at any time.  Somehow, I can't accept the fact that these scientists were aware of the extent of the damage they were doing.  Am I being overly naive in the face of the evidence? 

Thank you for all of the links. I'm finding some of them particularly interesting. Do you think it makes a difference if the patient consents to experimental treatments, knowing that the results, side effects, are unknown?

[JoanP]

Wasn't it interesting to read the follow-up stories of the Atomic City girls - all returning to Oak Ridge after the war.  (Am I right?) They didn't flee once they learned what went on here, did they?
They married, settled here, had babies, without concerns for their health.  Is it clear now why DK chose these particular girls for the subjects of her book?  They are still here for interviews.

Ursa, hopefully you will come back to chat before we finish up here.  Would love to hear a bit more from you about life in Oak Ridge when you arrived in 1953...and how the Plant is regarded today by residents of Oak Ridge - and how the renovation of the Guest House is coming along.

[ursamajor]

There was in Oak Ridge for many years a hospital under the sponsorship of Oak Ridge Institue for Nucleat Science. (now Oak Ridge Associated Universities) that treated cancer patients with experimental methods, many of which included some kind of radiation.  This was very much above board and the patients or their guardians all signed releases and statements that they were aware that these treatments were experimental.  I never heard anything but good about it, except for one woman who claimed that the vermin in the buildings (she meant the experimental rats and other animals) had caused her child to die.  This caused a lot of consternation among the then retired staff but nothing ever came of it.

The renovation of the Guest House continues apace.  An acquaintance of mine has already signed up for an apartment; I mean to look into it further.

There was an earlier reference to the referendum as whether or not to incorporate the city.  I can't remember how I voted but I know there were reasons to vote either way.  There were some people who were sorry when the fence went down; after all, the fence kept out undesirables.  Back in the 50s there was almost no poverty in Oak Ridge; everybody had a job.  That is no longer true. there are a good number of poor families living in parts of Oak Ridge that have pretty much become slums.

Oak Ridge was a good place to live in the 50s and 60s.  The schools were excellent and there was almost no crime. We had enough stores for pretty good shopping and Knoxville wasn't very far away.Kids ranged over the neighborhoods and we thought it perfectly safe.  There were enough mothers at home so that there was somebody to keep an eye on things.  Most of the daddies came home at 5:00 o'clock except for those scientists who had experiments running.  My husband was in a carpool for thirty years.  One of the members became unable to work because of illness and his wife got a job at the lab and took his place in the carpool.  It was a good time.

I have a friend who came here during the war years.  She now lives in a retirement home called Greenfield.  Colleen Black lives across the hall, and another of the "girls" lived there until she died recently.

[marcie]

 I also enjoyed learning from the book what had happened to some of the people. Ursamajor, thank you for the interesting updates to add to what we learned.

Joan, I do think it makes a difference to get informed consent for health experiments. If you know what treatment you'll be getting and you think it's worth it, for the potential benefit to yourself or others (even if it is risky with no guarantee), I think that's okay.

[PatH]

If you know what treatment you'll be getting and you think it's worth it, for the potential benefit to yourself or others (even if it is risky with no guarantee), I think that's okay.

Exactly.  The other important thing is that there mustn't be any coercion.  That's why Willowbrook (mentioned in the Wikipedia article) is such a horrible example.  It was essentially the only New York residential facility for mentally handicapped children, and consent to the experiments was a prerequisite for admission, so parents who couldn't handle caring for their children didn't have much choice.

[PatH]

Back in the 50s there was almost no poverty in Oak Ridge; everybody had a job.

No wonder it was such a good place to live.  That's sure not true much of anywhere now.

[JoanP]

"Has Kiernan done a good job of telling the story of the atomic bomb with thought and sensitivity and walking a line between commemoration and celebration,” Pat asks.  Some of us have already replied to this.  Do you all agree?

We'll give everyone a chance to think about that question and rate the author's efforts before retiring this discussion to the Archives...Thanks everyone for your thoughts and insignts.

[marcie]

Yes, I do agree. The story is told mostly from the views of the interviewed workers. I think that the author provided us with an interesting story of "atomic city" and the race for the development of the bomb from those points of view. I too appreciate everyone's insights and thoughts about this book and these events.

[PatH]

I think she did an excellent job of showing what it felt like in the war years, and the varied and mixed emotions afterward.  Thank goodness she did this work in time.