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The Girls Of Atomic City Summary

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The Girls Of Atomic City Summary
The book The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan is the story of the young women and men who worked in secrecy on a project unknown to them, which would help end World War II. Ms. Kiernan is an author and journalist who has written several historical titles. She is writing this book from the viewpoint of a historian interested in women’s roles in World War II history.

In this book, Kiernan describes how young women came from all over the US traveled to Oak Ridge, Tennessee to work for Clinton Engineering Works on a secret project to help end the war. A city of 75,000 was built from the ground up. Unknown to them they were enriching Uranium or Tubealloy as a part of the Manhattan project. This Tubealloy would be used to arm the Gadget or Atomic Bomb, used to bomb Hiroshima. Many of these young women had only a high school diploma and a strong work ethic. Kiernan describes how they worked as hard as the men while making this secret city a home. The military controlled the project, but the women …show more content…
She just knew her new job served one purpose: to bring a speedy and victorious end to the war. This was enough for her. Celia ended up working as a secretary in “Castle on the Hill’ or admin building. Celia joined the Catholic Young Adults group. She dated Henry, they married, had a family and continue to live in Oak Ridge. All these stories make the book’s argument convincing.

In conclusion, The Girls of Atomic City is a very informative book. Ms. Kiernan does a very accurate job of sharing the roles of the women in shaping Oak Ridge into a unique community that exists today. The author presents enough technical information and history on the Project to keep the reader interested. The reader will understand the importance of this history. This book should be read by students of feminism and
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