The Girls of Atomic City is a bit like Debs at War, with the twist that these American girls 1) by and large were from quite unprivileged backgrounds in contrast to the likes of Princess Di's aunt; and 2) had absolutely no idea that the factory where they worked was actually creating the material for the atomic bomb. The latter is probably the most fascinating aspect of Denise Kiernan's story of Oak Ridge, Tennessee: virtually no one knew anything - and doesn't seem to have given it too much thought. There was a war on, there was a job to do, and for most of these women, from the small towns and smaller farms of the rural south, there was a paycheck to earn, the size of which they'd never dared imagine.
In the age of social media and, yes, Edward Snowden, it's also fascinating to contemplate what the government accomplished - buying and clearing land, hiring tens of thousands of people, building an entire town, to say nothing of the nuclear plant that was its raison d'être, and all without nearly anyone knowing. Following FDR's death, even Harry Truman had to be briefed on the Oak Ridge facility, a revelation which left him gobsmacked. He would write, in fact, that learning of Oak Ridge left him feeling "like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."
I especially enjoyed the way in which Kiernan intertwines the history of Oak Ridge and the women who lived and worked there with the history of nuclear science itself, as well as the breadth of women she interviewed and ultimately profiled in this book. These women held jobs ranging from janitor to statistician to high level scientists and hailed from equally variable backgrounds. Although it can be hard at times to keep up with which character did what, when, and with whom, the cast of characters provides a comprehensive look at what went into the making of the atom bomb on a day-to-day, behind-the-scenes basis.
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