The Girls of Atomic City (28 page)

“Confusing public relief with social welfare” was how Clarke described the Project’s approach to residential mental well-being intentional or not. No number of bowling leagues, dances, or drama clubs could completely alleviate the uneasiness that resulted from working so hard, for so long, under such secretive conditions.

“The pressure of work upon the executives of major and minor divisions has become so great that neurotic reactions due to fatigue are appearing frequently,” he wrote in the confidential report. He
felt the community “differs from other communities in that as yet there is no centralized organization charged with the responsibility for integration of community life to help solve personal problems of its residents. The need for this seems to have arrived.”

Dissatisfaction with housing was by far the biggest complaint and the root of many difficulties. Dr. Clarke had also seen acute anxiety neurosis, which he viewed as similar to battle fatigue overseas. He later wrote in a journal article of “fatigue reactions with associated tension states [which] have been most prevalent and are easy to understand, particularly in the executive group. Long hours, continued strain, a driving sense of pressure, no relaxation and a situation that was never stable exacted their combined toll. . . . One source of frustration to many of the minor scientific group, who were not aware of the total picture, was that they were required to spend months of repetition of a single chemical analysis without knowing what had gone before or what happened afterwards.” He also noticed there were many workers who were aware that they were dealing with toxic materials that were generally unknown to them.

He believed a small psychiatric ward had to be added to the existing outpatient service. He found it challenging, to be sure, treating the variety of patients that he did, individuals that he characterized as ranging from Nobel Prize winners down to “hill folk.” But professionally, it was a unique and exceptional experience, and the population he served continued to grow like mountain mint—creeping, then leaping all along the Black Oak Ridge.

He suggested the psychiatric service could benefit from two additional social case workers—one for those living in the trailers and one for those in permanent housing—a full-time probation officer, children’s recreational services, and a children’s psychiatric worker.

Of one thing Clarke was sure: Attitude made a huge difference in how someone managed life within the fences. He was still routinely inspired by the spirit and resilience of many of the residents, especially the “democratic spirit in trailer camps and demountable houses.” Life on the Reservation, he observed, was “particularly hard on those who lack a sense of humor.”

Who among them had ever been involved in building a city from scratch? When had Americans ever built a city whose sole purpose had to be kept secret, not only from the outside world but from the vast majority of its own inhabitants?

In the face of not only war, but of lack, of not-knowing, of creeps and security checks, these people—the hill folk, the scientists, everyone in between—continued to endure despite everything he had laid out in his 10-page report, and so much more that was yet to come.

★ ★ ★

Chemist Virginia Spivey recoiled at what she had heard. She was having lunch with her colleagues when another lab worker—a man recently arrived from Nevada—casually and assertively said he didn’t think women needed to go to college. He said this right in front of her, and in front of her colleague and friend Emily. Then he resumed eating.

Aside from this episode, Virginia had been enjoying her lab job. She had gone to college—no matter the lunchtime consensus was about women in higher education—to work in chemistry. And now sitting here, surrounded by workbenches dotted with beakers and microscopes, she knew that this was where she belonged.

The bus dropped many Y-12 workers like Virginia at the plant complex’s North Portal and from there it was a brief stroll down the hill to 9202, which housed chemical processing and bulk treatment. It was a serious atmosphere, but the group of about 10 of them talked throughout the day, their noses down, microscopes extended from them like an extra appendage. And more often than not, the group ate lunch together.

Her supervisor, Al Ryan, was easygoing and friendly. Emily Leyshon had become a good friend and was the only other woman with a science degree in the lab. There was another young girl who worked in the lab doing cleanup, and Virginia found her delightful. She was from nearby Rockwood, if Virginia was not mistaken. Virginia was from the south, too, but even she was learning some new language now that she had left eastern North Carolina for southern Appalachia. For example, a paper bag, she soon learned, was a “poke.”

Even the coworker who had infuriated her was likable. But the comment—after all her hard work—got the soft-spoken Virginia riled. She did something she didn’t often do: She spoke up and let him know that she did not agree.

How could she? Her parents had lived life with eighth-grade educations and worked too hard to make college a possibility for her. After her father’s sudden death in a car accident when she was just twelve, Virginia watched her mother, a talented seamstress, raise six children alone off a buck-a-dress income. Word spread around their small town of Louisburg, North Carolina, and customers would come by the house with an armful of material and patterns, from places like Sears, Roebuck and Co. Virginia’s mother would whip out her measuring tape and fit them in a flash. College had never been an option for Virginia’s mother, but she never let Virginia or any of her other siblings worry that they wouldn’t be able to pursue higher education. After two years as a day student at the local junior college, Virginia earned a scholarship to Chapel Hill. Her sister Sophia, four years Virginia’s senior, had already gotten a bachelor’s from UNC and was there working on her master’s. Four years’ difference meant Virginia and her sister graduated the same year, but her sister always did so with the higher degree and seemingly a greater share of attention. But that was of little consequence. Virginia enjoyed sharing an interest in science with her sister.

She had grown up very poor, but now she was here working, earning good money, and had a degree from a good university to her name. She rarely felt her background was an issue, let alone her gender. Outside of work, she never knew what the other people milling around Y-12 were doing, so she never sensed any large social distinctions. She moved from the dorm to the plant and back to the dorm again, interacting with women and men, excelling at work, making new friends, without much acknowledgment of class differences in her day-to-day existence.

A few years before coming to Oak Ridge, Virginia and her sister discussed the strange new paucity of information in magazines, newspapers, and journals about developments in their field. After such an
active period, it seemed as if news of chemistry and physics had disappeared completely from popular literature for a couple years now. They wondered why.

But now, Virginia was in the middle of the same sorts of advancements she had once read about, awash in precious cakes of yellow and green, made from ingredients rarer and harder to come by than any wartime ration. She analyzed the cakes for their Tubealloy composition. How much had been chlorinated? What was the percentage? What was the analysis? The assay?

Meanwhile, not too far away, Virginia’s friend Jane was plugging answers like those into complex calculations, while young women like Dot and Helen guided the Tubealloy through the calutrons and Colleen tested seal after seal of massive pipes at K-25, its acres of floors and towers of tanks scrubbed clean and shined by Kattie. The injured were cared for by women like Rosemary and recruits and contracts and generals came and went through the Castle on the Hill, helped along by Toni and Celia.

War had brought them together, in dorms and at dances, at work and on buses. But another, elusive and unspoken link—Tubealloy—brought together their efforts, and was completely dependent upon their abilities.

Virginia knew that this lab, this life, was uniquely hers. She had earned it.

★ ★ ★

Colleen and her mother had gotten a jump on Christmas. They had to, if the package was going to reach Jimmy in time. Colleen didn’t know where her brother would be spending the holiday—or even where he was, for that matter. All she had was his APO address.

Soldiers had to travel light, so she and her mother had baked some Christmas cookies and a fruitcake (a treat designed for long-distance travel) and had bought a leather wallet, which they packed full of recent family pictures.

Once the presents and treats were wrapped tight, they began popping the popcorn. The stovetop-prepared, farm-grown packing material would help cushion the presents and ensure Jimmy didn’t
open a box of fruitcake crumbs Christmas morning. They carried the package down to the post office and shipped it off, hoping the kernels would hold up during the trip overseas.

Here at home, her little brother Harry wanted a trumpet, just like bandleader Harry James, whose hit with his big band “You Made Me Love You” rocketed up the charts the week that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. But Colleen and her mother had doubts they could find one. Certainly not in Oak Ridge. Pickings were slim at the Reservation stores and only marginally better in Knoxville, which would have required a trip on the bus or hitching a ride with someone who had a car. Guitars were easier to get your hands on, so a guitar it was. Harry would not be entirely happy, but what could they do? They made the best of it. They had no Christmas decorations, so they made paper chains and Colleen’s sister Sara painted ornaments with red fingernail polish. Colleen worked all day on Christmas, scaling pipes. Neither the Project nor the war stopped, no matter the season.

TUBEALLOY

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

COMBINING EFFORTS IN THE NEW YEAR

The end of 1943 had been marked by sputtering and electrical failures at the Y-12 electromagnetic plant. The end of 1944 was shaping up to be much better, if unpredictable. At this point, Y-12 was just over 95 percent complete, while the construction and development of K-25 and its gaseous diffusion process kept plugging along, the barrier still an issue.

For the Project, the outcome of the November elections was a good one. There had been little doubt this time around about Roosevelt’s intentions to run for reelection, and perhaps even less doubt about his ability to win the Oval Office again, despite the fact that he had occupied it longer than any other president of the United States in the 155 years since George Washington had first been sworn in. Roosevelt took on Missouri’s Harry S. Truman as his running mate, a man who had not actively sought the nomination and who as senator had sought to curb reckless wartime spending. For the time being, the outcome of the presidential election meant one less new person for the General to brief.

Autumn had Project heads from both the science and military camps thinking hard about the feasibility of employing the three main plants—Y-12, K-25, and S-50—together, in some sort of tandem. This was no easy task. S-50 would be able to take the Product from 0.7 enriched up to 0.9 percent. After that, the electromagnetic process at Y-12, with Alpha and Beta stages operational, should be able to achieve a percentage good enough for the Gadget. That was the initial thought at least.

And the day before Halloween, the first Product had been taken from the S-50 thermal diffusion plant. Lt. Col. Mark Fox, unit chief for the thermal diffusion section, had overseen the breakneck pace of S-50’s construction. The Engineer had been advised to “Put a good administrative man on the job to clean up the paperwork,” after he was done. Joints were leaky, but steam was moving through them.

At K-25, the Project hoped to start operating individual sections as they were ready. The Engineer put a team together to examine every possible production combination, as different sections of the plants became operational. The team decided that any enriched material from S-50 should go into K-25 first, not Y-12. Initially, the estimate was that K-25 should be able to produce Product enriched to 1 percent or so to feed Y-12’s Alphas. Then, once enough sections of K-25 were completed, it could produce Product enriched to 20 percent to feed directly into the Y-12 Beta tracks.

The question remained whether K-25’s top stages should be completed. The charts that the team produced told the story. K-25, with all stages operating, wouldn’t yet produce as much as the base plant alone feeding the Y-12 Betas. Nor would Y-12 alone, with more Alphas added, be substantially more productive. Taking all into account, the thinking was to build additional gaseous diffusion base units at K-25 and another Beta track at Y-12. The new gaseous diffusion facility would be called K-27. The plan would add $100 million to the budget and would, hopefully, be done by 1946. The Engineer briefed the General while enjoying a postdinner stroll past Pennsylvania Station in New York City. The General had had two predinner drinks, which might have smoothed the approval process, and he gave the plant the green light.

The Engineer and the General felt that by August of 1945, at least one version of the Gadget would be ready. Possibly two.

CHAPTER 10

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Curiosity and Silence

A three-year concentration of curiosity should be quite a potent brew for the average woman.

—Vi Warren,
Oak Ridge Journal

“Henry won’t be coming home tonight,” the voice said. “We need to keep him here.”

Another call from work, another cryptic message. Celia wondered if this would be the last time she would get a call like this about her new husband.

Sometimes Henry turned up the next day, sometimes it was two. When he did arrive, it was not with much of an explanation. Celia knew—and Henry had told her as much—that he himself didn’t completely understand why he had to stay and couldn’t tell her what went on while he was there. All Celia knew was that sometimes he had to stay over. Celia never got used to it, never stopped wondering if Henry was okay. It would be years before she would learn the stories behind his workplace sleepovers.