The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, by Denise Kiernan

Women at Oak Ridge	Men
Celia Szapka – secretary Toni Peters – secretary Jane Greer – statistician Kattie Strickland – janitor - African American – came with husband and left children behind Virginia Spivey – chemist Colleen Rowan – pipe inspector Dorothy Jones – calutron cubical operator Helen Hall – calutron cubical operator Rosemary Maiers – nurse	GG – General Leslie Groves – head of Manhattan Project James Edward “Ed” Wescott – photographer – documented Oak Ridge project Ebb Cabe – HP-12
Other Women	Names and Codes
Ida Noddach – German geochemist – suggested fission years before discovered Lise Meitner – Austrian physicist – escaped Nazi Germany – part of team that discovered fission Leona Woods – American physicist M. H.K.Ferguson – widow of H.K. Ferguson Co. founder – built S-50 plant Joan Hinton – American physicist – worked with Enrico Fermi Elizabeth Graves – American physicist – worked on neuron reflector surrounding the Gadget	The Gadget Tubealloy CEW – Clinton Engineering Works

For discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from paperback edition of the book.

1. From a reader’s perspective, how did you like the sections alternating between the story of the girls and the science developments?
2. Would you have considered going off to a new job and location with such little information?  Why do you think the girls were so trusting and willing to go?
3. The author wrote that The Project, “liked high school girls…feeling young women were easy to instruct.  They did what they were told.  They weren’t overly curious.”   This was contrasted with the idea that, “Educated young women and men, people who had gone to college and learned just enough to think that they might ‘know’ something, gave you problems.” (page 69)  Do you agree that it was the college education or something else that made some people more inquisitive?
4. Consider the censorship and how little was known about the settlement at Oak Ridge.  Was it justified?  Would it be possible today?
5. On page 5 the author wrote, “Complaining was not in fashion in 1943.”  What happened since then that complaining is one of our main activities?
6. Discuss the discrimination against women and also against African Americans.
1. Women:

                                                               i.      Only men could be “Head of Household” and therefore get a house. (page 86)

                                                             ii.      Women stayed in dorms with “Dorm Mothers” where they could be closely monitored. (page 94).

2. African Americans:

                                                               i.      Black women stayed in a special part of the hutments surrounded with barbed wire and with a guard at the entrance.  Men did not.  (page 90)

                                                             ii.      Homes were not provided for blacks because they, “didn’t want the nice houses…” and they “felt more comfortable in the huts, that was what was familiar to them…” (page 91)

                                                           iii.      Men and women lived separately and spouses were not allowed to visit. (page 92)

                                                           iv.      Discuss the experiments done on Ebb Cabe (HP-12) without his knowledge. 

7. Discuss the changes that the addition of women made to Oak Ridge:
1. “Whether intended or not, CEW was a social experiment of sorts.” (page 97)
2. “Women added a social dimension to this military installation that had not yet been taken fully into account.” (page 97)
3. “Women were powerful. And oh so necessary.” (page 97)
4. “Women infused the job site with life, their permanence effortlessly defying all attempts to control and plan and shape every aspect of day-to-day existence at Oak Ridge.” (page 98)
8. How do you think people were able to cope in such a restricted environment where you were afraid to say anything about your work to anyone?  On page 96 the author wrote that it was suspected that there were many psychiatric problems among the residents.
9. Do you like Spam? 
10. On page xviii in the character list it said that the real name of Mrs. H. K. Ferguson would be revealed later.  Did you ever find it?
11. How would you feel to find out you had been a part of developing such a destructive weapon?  Did the good overcome the negative?