---
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title: "The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II"
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# The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

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desertcart.com: The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II: 9781451617535: Kiernan, Denise: Books

Review: Brilliant and impartial synthesis - I was born in Tennessee and used to work in aerospace so when I saw this book about Oak Ridge, Tennessee it caught my eye immediately. Oak Ridge was one of the locations for the work of The Manhattan Project to get an atomic bomb ready for use on Japan in WWII. Kiernan does an amazing job of interweaving the personal experiences of those involved with this project with other information about the science and politics involved. Kiernan begins with the scientists of Europe who are working on splitting the atom and describes how many scientists brought different pieces of information to the table. She reports that it is a woman who suggested the possibility of nuclear fission and how it might be done altho she is never really credited for her work. It makes interesting reading seeing how they fit the pieces together though and Kiernan gives very clear explanations of the science involved. I did not expect to be able to understand that part, but I did fairly well. The rest of the book focuses on the stories of several women and men who work specifically at the Oak Ridge site making the "product". This location eventually has a population of about 75,000. It begins with government and military agents recruiting workers by telling them they were needed to work on a secret project that may very well end the war, but they could not know what it was or where they were going to live. The recruiters played on patriotism and fear about relatives who were fighting overseas. These workers were literally picked up by a cab or bus and put on a train or other form of transportation and taken to Oak Ridge. Before the workers arrived we see the usual process of manifest destiny play out on the poor rural population around Oak Ridge. Families are poorly compensated typically, and that of course is a book in itself, but one that has already been written. Then the construction workers are brought in to build housing for the coming workers. Houses for middle class family employees, dorms for single workers, huts with no windows in a segregated area for African Americans who are typically held to the same work they are outside, janitorial, etc. Schools are eventually built for the white children of workers but not for the Af Ams. One historian said it was the first community he was aware of that had been built with slums deliberately planned. Workers are told what they need to know to do their piece of the project and nothing else. They don't even actually know what they are doing or at least what the purpose is. For example some women are spending hours a day sitting on a stool reading gages and spinning dials, not knowing what they are measuring. Some are testing pipes for leaks, not knowing what the pipes are for. They are not allowed to discuss ANYTHING work related with anyone, no family, no friends, no one, which stresses all relationships. Workers are recruited to spy on each other and to be merely accused by an informant was cause for dismissal. Anyone breaking the rules disappears quickly. When fired they are not given a clearance to work on anything else outside of this work for six months. No one can hire them for any job without that piece of paper. All of this stress makes a very tense situation and causes mental issues for some. One case of a "mentally ill" man is described wherein he is literally held captive because he has figured out the secret and wants to warn the emperor of Japan. The weight of what they have been involved in eventually effects many workers. Other workers injured in accidents were also used for medical research. A psychiatrist is called in to help and gets some treatment and some recreational relief. Movies, and bowling alleys are built for white people, while if lucky African Americans may be able to catch a glimpse of the outdoor movie screen from a nearby hill. Although they manage to make their own recreation. Although there are hard circumstances, many seem to thrive. They have employment and are being paid well. They are also learning new skills. They make their own fun also with dances put on in tennis courts and houses. They form groups with people with similar interests to develop hobbies and other social groups, and have access to some hiking and other outdoor activities. As I review my highlights here are some things I found especially interesting. Kiernan describes the setting as an "Orwellian backdrop for a Rockwellian world". "The challenges of living with military supervision were replaced by the challenges of living without it." (employment, police and fire services, public transportation, elections, etc. when the war ends and the situation changes.) A change is reported to research and development of peace time uses for nuclear power. After the war one woman goes to put flowers on her brothers "grave" in Pearl Harbor. She cries in her grief. A Japanese tourist nearby asks her if she lost someone here and when the answer is yes, she embraces the woman and says she is so sorry. Counterpoint to the guilt some workers feel. The author does a way more balanced job of reporting than I have done here, and describes her process as melding together individual memory, collective community memory, primary source material, media coverage, etc. If George Bush or Barack Obama asked you today if you would work on a secret project to end our wars but he couldn't tell you what it is or where you will go or for how long, what would your answer be? Five stars.
Review: but does not spend a great deal of time on it - This book chronicles the development of and life in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, from 1943 on; it also describes technical aspects of the development of the atomic bomb. As you all know, the United States as of this writing, June 16 2018, remains the only country to use nuclear weapons in actual warfare; one atomic bomb was dropped on each of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August of 1945. More than 100,000 people were killed instantly and many more died later. The United States was in a race against Germany and perhaps other countries to develop the bomb first. The book describes the lives, the secrecy, the buildings, the frenetic pace, and more aspects of the tens of thousands of people who worked at Oak Ridge and on the bomb with a focus on women. It is well written and compelling, especially up to the date of the bomb's use. After that, while still enjoyable and interesting, the page-turning aspect of the book diminished somewhat. The {Project, as the Manhattan Project was known, was compartmentalized with the aim of telling people only enough to do their jobs well and nothing more. The book also is compartmentalized, with chapters about the women's lives and the development of Oak Ridge interspersed with chapters on "Tuballoy," as uranium was called. The book focuses in particular on a handful of women, whose lives and work it follows in some detail. The book touches on the discrimination of black people and even the use of one black man as a guinea pig to test how plutonium moved through the human body and could be detected, but does not spend a great deal of time on it. I found the book quite absorbing and learned much from it; it meshes with other books on that era, some focused on the Trinity Site (where the bomb was tested), others focused on Los Alamos, where much of the work on the bomb was done as well (for example, '109 Palace Avenue"). In addition, I spent some time in Oak Ridge, including working at what was then called (and still is now) the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and it was additionally interesting for me to read about people and places I had known. I do recommend this book. It lost a star, however, for some careless editing (e.g., "due" for "do," "site" for "sight") and for a few unfortunate content errors that aren't important enough to affect the book's main messages.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Customer Reviews | 4.3 out of 5 stars 3,963 Reviews |

## Images

![The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/817O0D7ytOL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Brilliant and impartial synthesis
*by B***Y on June 28, 2013*

I was born in Tennessee and used to work in aerospace so when I saw this book about Oak Ridge, Tennessee it caught my eye immediately. Oak Ridge was one of the locations for the work of The Manhattan Project to get an atomic bomb ready for use on Japan in WWII. Kiernan does an amazing job of interweaving the personal experiences of those involved with this project with other information about the science and politics involved. Kiernan begins with the scientists of Europe who are working on splitting the atom and describes how many scientists brought different pieces of information to the table. She reports that it is a woman who suggested the possibility of nuclear fission and how it might be done altho she is never really credited for her work. It makes interesting reading seeing how they fit the pieces together though and Kiernan gives very clear explanations of the science involved. I did not expect to be able to understand that part, but I did fairly well. The rest of the book focuses on the stories of several women and men who work specifically at the Oak Ridge site making the "product". This location eventually has a population of about 75,000. It begins with government and military agents recruiting workers by telling them they were needed to work on a secret project that may very well end the war, but they could not know what it was or where they were going to live. The recruiters played on patriotism and fear about relatives who were fighting overseas. These workers were literally picked up by a cab or bus and put on a train or other form of transportation and taken to Oak Ridge. Before the workers arrived we see the usual process of manifest destiny play out on the poor rural population around Oak Ridge. Families are poorly compensated typically, and that of course is a book in itself, but one that has already been written. Then the construction workers are brought in to build housing for the coming workers. Houses for middle class family employees, dorms for single workers, huts with no windows in a segregated area for African Americans who are typically held to the same work they are outside, janitorial, etc. Schools are eventually built for the white children of workers but not for the Af Ams. One historian said it was the first community he was aware of that had been built with slums deliberately planned. Workers are told what they need to know to do their piece of the project and nothing else. They don't even actually know what they are doing or at least what the purpose is. For example some women are spending hours a day sitting on a stool reading gages and spinning dials, not knowing what they are measuring. Some are testing pipes for leaks, not knowing what the pipes are for. They are not allowed to discuss ANYTHING work related with anyone, no family, no friends, no one, which stresses all relationships. Workers are recruited to spy on each other and to be merely accused by an informant was cause for dismissal. Anyone breaking the rules disappears quickly. When fired they are not given a clearance to work on anything else outside of this work for six months. No one can hire them for any job without that piece of paper. All of this stress makes a very tense situation and causes mental issues for some. One case of a "mentally ill" man is described wherein he is literally held captive because he has figured out the secret and wants to warn the emperor of Japan. The weight of what they have been involved in eventually effects many workers. Other workers injured in accidents were also used for medical research. A psychiatrist is called in to help and gets some treatment and some recreational relief. Movies, and bowling alleys are built for white people, while if lucky African Americans may be able to catch a glimpse of the outdoor movie screen from a nearby hill. Although they manage to make their own recreation. Although there are hard circumstances, many seem to thrive. They have employment and are being paid well. They are also learning new skills. They make their own fun also with dances put on in tennis courts and houses. They form groups with people with similar interests to develop hobbies and other social groups, and have access to some hiking and other outdoor activities. As I review my highlights here are some things I found especially interesting. Kiernan describes the setting as an "Orwellian backdrop for a Rockwellian world". "The challenges of living with military supervision were replaced by the challenges of living without it." (employment, police and fire services, public transportation, elections, etc. when the war ends and the situation changes.) A change is reported to research and development of peace time uses for nuclear power. After the war one woman goes to put flowers on her brothers "grave" in Pearl Harbor. She cries in her grief. A Japanese tourist nearby asks her if she lost someone here and when the answer is yes, she embraces the woman and says she is so sorry. Counterpoint to the guilt some workers feel. The author does a way more balanced job of reporting than I have done here, and describes her process as melding together individual memory, collective community memory, primary source material, media coverage, etc. If George Bush or Barack Obama asked you today if you would work on a secret project to end our wars but he couldn't tell you what it is or where you will go or for how long, what would your answer be? Five stars.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ but does not spend a great deal of time on it
*by D***Y on June 16, 2018*

This book chronicles the development of and life in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, from 1943 on; it also describes technical aspects of the development of the atomic bomb. As you all know, the United States as of this writing, June 16 2018, remains the only country to use nuclear weapons in actual warfare; one atomic bomb was dropped on each of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August of 1945. More than 100,000 people were killed instantly and many more died later. The United States was in a race against Germany and perhaps other countries to develop the bomb first. The book describes the lives, the secrecy, the buildings, the frenetic pace, and more aspects of the tens of thousands of people who worked at Oak Ridge and on the bomb with a focus on women. It is well written and compelling, especially up to the date of the bomb's use. After that, while still enjoyable and interesting, the page-turning aspect of the book diminished somewhat. The {Project, as the Manhattan Project was known, was compartmentalized with the aim of telling people only enough to do their jobs well and nothing more. The book also is compartmentalized, with chapters about the women's lives and the development of Oak Ridge interspersed with chapters on "Tuballoy," as uranium was called. The book focuses in particular on a handful of women, whose lives and work it follows in some detail. The book touches on the discrimination of black people and even the use of one black man as a guinea pig to test how plutonium moved through the human body and could be detected, but does not spend a great deal of time on it. I found the book quite absorbing and learned much from it; it meshes with other books on that era, some focused on the Trinity Site (where the bomb was tested), others focused on Los Alamos, where much of the work on the bomb was done as well (for example, '109 Palace Avenue"). In addition, I spent some time in Oak Ridge, including working at what was then called (and still is now) the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and it was additionally interesting for me to read about people and places I had known. I do recommend this book. It lost a star, however, for some careless editing (e.g., "due" for "do," "site" for "sight") and for a few unfortunate content errors that aren't important enough to affect the book's main messages.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The profound amidst the mundane
*by M***S on December 5, 2025*

This book combines the seemingly mundane with the historically profound. It is proudly feminist, as it should be. It is also carefully historic, also as it should be. This book follows the lives of a number of unheralded women who started work at then super secret Oak Ridge nuclear reservation when it was little more than ankle-sucking mud and shoddy, makeshift huts. Oak Ridge would grow to a community of 78,000, with its own bus system, hospitals, sports teams and huge factories generating "product" for the "gadget". Yet Oak Ridge could not be found on any map. Secrecy prevailed. Variations of the mantra of Loose Lips, etc., was very real and strictly enforced. The government salted the work places with internal spies charged with reporting any breach of the rules, like talking about what you do with your roommate. Behind closed gates, the factories and laboratories were producing the fissionable material that would be used in the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the compartilization was so complete, none of the employees (at least those interviewed for this book) understood what they were helping to build. The women worked heroically under trying conditions: terribly poor housing, ankle-sucking mud everywere, for years, conditions. Things were markedly worse if you were Black--worse housing in worse areas, zero respect, lesser employment. The blatant racism is stunning. Yet in telling their stories, the book inadvertently highlights the second class status of the thousands of women employees. It is the men who are in charge, more in the know, make the key decisions and analyze the data provided by the women. Many of the women, at least those subject of this book, were high school graduates from rural southern communities. A salary of 58 cents an hour was a huge step-up. Also, they were less likely to overthink things and simply did what they were told, precisely. The result was the output of "product" was higher in facilities with relatively uneducated girls than those staffed with doctorates. For me, the most illuminating part of this book was intelling the story of this important place through the eyes of those who worked there. This place deserves to be remembered and, as the author notes, its history risks slipping away for lack of funding to build a lasting study center/memorial/archive. I was skeptical when I started this book: did I really want to read about the household challenges of young women asked to do an admittedly difficult job? Thankfully I pushed on and by the end was richly rewarded. Worthwhile.

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