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Enjoyed the morning programs. We are now in for some additional treats this afternoon. This section is called gross of the Manhattan Project. And i sadly i am not sad about filling in, but im sad that denise, the author of the of the girls of the atomic city cannot be here today. And that her book reached the New York Times bestsellers list when it came out and it has captivated people with its story of the women in world war ii while working on this topsecret project in oak ridge. And one of the girls, she featured nine girls, is with us this afternoon. And that is rosemary move lane Rosemary Lane. Three of them three of the girls that are the nine major characters, or not characters, but the people she focused on in her book, are on the voices of the Manhattan Project website. We were able to take interviews with them. So you can read the book and listen and see them on a website. Ms. Black is one i would like to remember, who was a very, very dear and such an enthusiast for preserving oak ridges history and the creation of the national park. Sadly, she passed away in the last couple of months, but she was just larger than life. She arrived in oak ridge with her extended family of 10 persons, and they lived in a trailer and worked in shifts so they could sleep in shifts to an all fit into the trailer. To all fit in to the trailer. But you always talked with enthusiasm. And she will be missed. Another person that is focused in the book is katie strickland. She came from Auburn Alabama with her husband to work. Only to discover that the armys segregation policy for bid her from living with her husband. So she had to bribe the military police with homemade biscuits in order to [laughter] to live with him. The book is full of great stories. It is can affect the stories we have been hearing guest today and today. So, one of the themes, when i talked to denise about what you might like to talk about today is about the journey that each of these woman women took that was representative of the transformation going on in europes society with respect to human women and the world of work. And it came from this necessity that there were huge manufacturing plants and manufacturing jobs that had to be filled by women because the men were off to war. But it really was an incredible impact on the United States and World Society to suddenly open up all these opportunities to women. So, without further a do, i have two such samples right here. Rosemary lane, who was a news at oak ridge. And isabelle karle , who was a chemist at a lab in chicago. First, i will ask rosemary to tell us a little bit about her story and how her expense on the Manhattan Project transformed her life. Rosemary lane well, them the microphone needs to be about two inches from your lip. Lips. Rosemary lane can you hear me . Can we dim the lights and little bit . A little bit . That is better. Thank you. Thank you. [indiscernible] [indistinct chatter] Rosemary Lane now it is off again. Ok. I came to oak ridge in august 1943. I was a relatively new graduate from nursing school. I graduated when youre ahead of that time and i have been continuing to work at the hospital that i had finished my training in. And then was going to school parttime. And i got a phone call one day and it was a former instructor of mine. And he said, oh, i got to be to talk to you about. And i would like to meet you for lunch, which we did. He, it turned out, had become a recruiter for the Manhattan Project for nurses. Because they were he was going to help staff a hospital that was in the process of being built. This is in august of 1943. The hospital was done that built, but he was looking for people to work there. And they made me a very nice offer to go down and actually being a charge nurse at the emergency room of the hospital. I was seriously consider becoming a nurse in the army or the navy, as many of my friends had done. Many of them had gone into the service. And i decided, well, i think outright. He assured me that i would be serving my country and doing as great as good i could at any military installation. And if i didnt like it, i could come home. I thought that was a pretty good deal to try. At least with try. I arrived in august 1943, on a very, very hot sunday afternoon. Another girl nurse who had graduated with me who also had the same opportunity to go to oak ridge, and jews going to work in the ob department. And she was going to work in the ob department. There were two dormitories for women and two or three from an at that time. And it was a very, very hot day. No roads, no sidewalks. One cafeteria and about three dormitories. That was where all the people who came to oak ridge from away from that area lived in single rooms or double rooms. I shared a room with rose at that time. Anyway, that is when i got to oak ridge. The hospital was done that built. It was not completed until november. It was in the process. November, it was finished. And it was a 50 bed hospital. And i they set it up and we were a very, very, very busy emergency room. That was the only medical place in the town of oak ridge. This did not serve the people who lived there and worked during the day. There were medical sites that serve them. But the people who lived in the town, which at that time was mostly the families of the people who were building and many of the scientists who were working out at lab, and they would go by bus out to the worksites during the day, but they come back to the city, to oak ridge. So we not only took care of what a normal emergency room does taking care of emergencies, were the only Medical Center in the area except for knoxville, which was 20 miles away. So it was a very, very busy place. We had a lot of not only emergencies, but sore throats, strep throat, and is in families moved in, he rakes and all those conditions one deals with in the family. The men went to work in the morning and there was one street when i went out to work in the street was completely filled, 20 houses. By the end of the day. It grew by leaps and bounds. It was exciting and i lived in this dormitory. It was hot and we all ate at the center cafeteria. There was also a Recreation Center and the town center, which was available for us to use and they had music. Of course, almost all the people there were young. Most were unmarried. They were from all over the United States. People from california to minnesota, new york, texas, you name it. And, of course, there were locals up in arms anyhow. But as a general rule, most of the people i worked with were not native to the area. They were from somewhere else. When the hospital finished in november, it was staffed by physicians who were often the military. There were about, oh, i guess 15 doctors from the university of minnesota maybe not quite that many who initially staffed the hospital. Shortly after the hospital was built, they started in addition because they knew it wasnt a n addition because they knew it wasnt nearly large enough. They added an Outpatient Department and staff did, within months, there were doctors from every specialty heading a department in that Outpatient Department. And with it, i went from just being an emergency room to being in charge of the Outpatient Department in helping set up the protocols and spending orders and so forth. And equipment and staff the the people who are working in that clinic. It was pediatric ob gyn, all those you would have in the city. Those services were all available to people. Not only with the nurses military, but all the physicians were. And they all had their families. A were there by the time i got there. They occupied the first socalled semester permanent type houses. There were a lot of other different types of temporary housing in the oak ridge area that was occupied by people who were the workers primarily. Workers who built all the buildings and building the roads. There were no roads, no sidewalks, just lots and lots of mud. But i met a lot of nice people and had a lot of good times. Anyway, that is where we were and that was at a time where we saw as many as 1000 patients throughout the day and the whole clinic. That was how busy it was. It was very challenging and very satisfying. We got to know a lot of people from all over the whole country. As i said, after that, we went to that was in 1943. Of course, the war, we continue to stay very, very busy. I started in the dormitories and moved to a house that was built for nurses only. Which was right next door to the hospital. And we lived there for a while and be a crew that, so one day the kernel there i asked if i wouldnt mind moving to an apartment. Because they needed more space in the dorm and they wanted to add an addition. So i shared an apartment. It was right next to where we go to work, but it had a living room and a kitchen so it was a very nice experience. Well, i enjoyed that for, oh, i guess about eight months. Then i got a phone call from the kernel telling me that i would have to move out and out have to go back i had to go back to the door because they needed my apartment because there was some man on a flight that had become mentally deranged. And because he was such a high security risk, he could not be removed from oak ridge. They would have to find a place for him to stay and be treated at that place. So i did move out of my apartment. There was a guard with him all the time. That is where he did stay and we did have a site we did have a psychiatric department. And that was where he was treated and the city could never be removed from there until after the work because he had so much information and spoke about what he had did out at one of the plants. So that was a nice experience. And that is when i had to go back to the dorm, but it was one of the things that happened in oak ridge. And that was 1945. The war was over and none of us knew everybody was so conscious of the fact that we were the biggest secret city. There were those of us who could go to mexico, but lots of posters and signs everywhere that would encourage people to not talk, not speak. Not leave leave any information you have where it is. Do not discuss your job with anybody. I just said i was a nurse in a hospital in any other like in any other city. And i didnt have access to any secret projects are of any kind. I might have been able to hear something from someone else, but if that happened, to not pass it on. Nobody could come visit you. You had to get a permit or pass. So you nobody could job by to see you. In 1945, the day the bomb was trapped, it was i remember that day as it was for many, many people. I remember the kernel called all the staff, not the patients, but those of us that worked there and the president was on the phone the radio. There was no tv at that time. And they made the announcement that the bomb had just been dropped. At his comment was now you know what you have been doing here and what you have been helping do. And all the work that you people all the people here in the lab. And there were a lot of people working lots and lots of hours. It not such good conditions, many times but everybody seemed to have a very patriotic spirit about them. And we didnt hear much complaining, except for the mud and the heat and things you do normally. When the war was over, a lot of the military doctors went back to their cities and set up their practices again. But i did stay in oak ridge and state in the clinic because many people continue to stay in oak ridge because research was being done and although there was a 20 im 75,000 People Living there there was at one time 75,000 People Living there, i wanted to go back to chicago. [indiscernible] but i was a charge nurse for the doctor who was the director. And my husband, who is a Research Assistant and has a job had a job as a Research Assistant, and had just returned from four years in the military, had some came to my department and it turns out we grew up about 10 miles apart in a little town in iowa. And i mean a very small town. And we had never met before, but anyway, that was the beginning of a friendship and we got married about a year later. And he continued to work there as a Research Assistant finished his degree. He had served four years in the navy and graduated from the university of tennessee. We married and lived there and he went to work for the commission. And when they were transit up to washington dc in 1958, our family moved up appear and, of course, we were sad. We had met so many nice people who had gone through they were like your family. All your friends begin their family because none of us lives near or with family. The celebrated many of our holidays together. And we celebrated many, many years after that. So it was a wonderful experience. And it was just by chance, but i did enjoy it. [applause] thank you very much. That was excellent. Ok. We heard isabelle yesterday for those of you who are here, but she is going to tell us about her experiences at the lab. Isabelle karle thank you. I moved to oak ridge in 1943, and my husband of so many months was also a graduate student. The day he got his phd, he also got a notice that he was now wanted material. And he was i wasnt excited about this because [indiscernible] certain dedication to the science and expenditure of a lot of energy, and that would probably be not used in any profitable way by the army. But he also got a letter, a strange letter, saying that he had a job waiting for him at the university of chicago. He could not be told otherwise however, you should find it interesting. So he packed up and went off to chicago. And he wrote letters that he had an excellent job here in chicago, but he didnt tell me anything about it could about it. I got my degree and i was wondering what my next steps could be. My husband then wrote me and told me that if i just show up at the laboratory at the university i would have a job also. [laughter] isabelle karle so, i moved. It was almost new years day. And appeared at what was called the lab at the university of chicago. And somebody wrote down my name at ted, yes, we were expecting you. And his head, yes, we were expecting you. And i was mushed over to my laboratory and was told that that was davidson, who is running that particular laboratory and with only what it is all about. But first i would find out if i could buy myself what it was all about. I think they were trying to see how secure their system was about spreading information about the research that was going on in the building. Well, it didnt take too long to find out that i was working on the new element, plutonium. And this new element needed to be explored, as to its Chemical Properties. A man was at the head of that particular laboratory. I didnt really see much of him except maybe at one of two locations. It is only afterwards that i got to know him. The laboratory i was assigned to, i was told that there was a few new element. And the new element needed compounds made. I needed to have the Chemical Properties evaluated heard and so, that is how i met up with plutonium. Our group, which consisted of about six people, got our materials from oak ridge. So we got plutonium in the form of plutonium oxide; however there. T was not as good as a pure chemical compound can be. Was not as good as it. Chemical compound good as a pure chemical compound can be. I soon found out that this was a heavy metal. Also, that it would take knowledge of chemistry to make the appropriate measurements from it. And as it happened in my degree work for a phd in chemistry, i never had any courses in heavy metal chemistry. [indiscernible] i had to find out how to make compounds, how to analyze them, and in addition, this one had very particular properties and that it had an extremely high melting point and i couldnt combine it with many things. And there was a whole new world and working with the plutonium and trying to make compounds from it. I had to succeed in making plutonium chloride in about six different ways. But i didnt have an had to create by myself created by myself. I was familiar with vacuum lines, but i was not familiar with them at high temperatures. In my vacuum lines were not made with ordinary glass or pyrex glass, because i had to work with temperatures near 900 degrees centigrade. Fortunately, the stock room at the university of chicago that we used did have a lot of pyrex not pyrex, sorry silicone that was already in tombs. But in order to blow that glass i knew how to blow pyrex glass but with this, i had to use hydrogen as the fuel. And as many of you can imagine a Hydrogen Flame is a pretty hot flame. It will melt things at 900 degrees. I mean, it will burn at 900 degrees and melt special glasses. Then the sum of this material i told you about yesterday in the preliminary target this meeting so, i had to figure out how to handle this material to make a vacuum line with it. Well working at very high temperatures and blowing this particular glass required flames that gave us so much light that i had to use extra dark glasses that i couldnt see through unless i used a a blow torch that burn the hydrogen [indiscernible] into a vacuum line. Fortunately, we did have a pump to evacuate the vacuum line. That was certainly good. We had to make new compounds then the plutonium that was sent to us from oak ridge every week. There would be a delivery, usually at the end of the week, of a new batch of plutonium oxide. It was relatively pure, but not chemically pure. And we took out pieces of the plutonium oxide and react them those pieces with the large numbers of organic solvents. Sometimes the chlorine atoms. Atoms, and sometimes were successful under many different conditions. [indiscernible] they all turned out to be the same no matter what the chloride source was. From that point, i was able to continue the work and growing our beautiful darkroom crystals. And it was a bit boring because all the organic chlorides that i used the chloride of the plutonium on the did the same kind of crystals and we were using the same materials. All very constant, all the ternium chloride. Which was tested by a next reprocess by an xray process. [indiscernible] that there was nothing other than plutonium chloride and it was all the same crystal class. Glass. I had experiences in carrying this material around in my pocket. That was the easiest way to get past the security guards. From our chemistry building we were in a building called real chemistry. But from that building to the physics department. At the permanent laboratory. And that was fine until the security people found out what i was doing, and then i had two guards, one on either side walking with me. All dressed in their uniforms. So that anybody who looked would have seen there was something particular about me. [indiscernible] somewhat monotonous because well as making this plutonium chloride under very many different Laboratory Conditions and i was getting to be quite good at it, the other people around me were making plutonium bromide. And that may nice crystals too. Plutonium fluoride, which caused some disastrous conditions, and that the burning of it turned out to be a paper, i guess, not a solid. And i laboratory was filled with days this. And you know where the plutonium fluoride compounds went, right up into the air, into the neighborhood, houses nearby. Supposedly nobody complained about it, any particular Health Effects did at least not at that time. Effects. At least not at that time. Another member of our group were making or trying to make the ternium iodide. And that was not quite as successful in making nice crystals. I suppose the size of the plutonium atom prevented good crystallization. And then there were those who were trying to make the plutonium chloride, and that was a disaster and that it all went up into the air. It wasnt as solid, so the whole laboratory was shut down for a while until it was well ventilated, well aired out. I guess to the benefit of all the neighbors who were living nearby and didnt know what was happening to them. But we didnt hear about any bad results in the future. Experiences in chicago could be condensed into making the plutonium in many different ways. And it was successful. And i dont know what it was used for afterwards. Thank you. [applause] i wish we had more time to receive questions, but im anxious to let the next panel, p so we can make sure we are on time for the other speakers who are coming so we can make sure that we are on time for the other speakers who are coming. We are very appreciative of rosemary and isabelle, just to of the many who found two of the many who found themselves working on the Manhattan Project. [applause] [indistinct chatter] you are watching American History tv, 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter. For information on a schedule of upcoming programs and to keep up with the latest history news. Each week, American History tvs reel america rings your archival films that help tell you the story of the 20th century. [sound of newsreel running] morneau from the Atomic Heritage Foundation with the Senior Research associate for the Natural Resources Defense Council nuclear program. He tells the story of george, an american citizen for almost 10 years who shared secrets with the soviet union. Others include to does Manhattan Project veterans later revealed to be soviet spies. This is 50 minutes. Why dont we invite the

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