The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Denise Kiernan
(Author)
Description
THE GIRLS OF ATOMIC C ITY AT THE HEIGHT OF WORLD WAR II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians--many of them young women from small towns across the South--were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. That is, until the end of the war--when Oak Ridge's secret was revealed.
Drawing on the voices of the women who lived it--women who are now in their eighties and nineties-- "The Girls of Atomic City "rescues a remarkable, forgotten chapter of American history from obscurity. Denise Kiernan captures the spirit of the times through these women: their pluck, their desire to contribute, and their enduring courage. Combining the grand-scale human drama of "The Worst Hard Time "with the intimate biography and often troubling science of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," "The Girls of Atomic City "is a lasting and important addition to our country's history.
Product Details
Price
$17.99
$16.73
Publisher
Large Print Press
Publish Date
March 25, 2014
Pages
653
Dimensions
5.5 X 8.4 X 1.5 inches | 1.75 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781594137204
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About the Author
Denise Kiernan's previous book, The Girls of Atomic City, is a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and NPR bestseller, and was named one of Amazon's Top 100 Best Books of 2013. Kiernan has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, Ms. Magazine, Reader's Digest, Discover, and many more publications. She has also worked in television, serving as head writer for ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire during its Emmy award-winning first season and producing for media outlets such as ESPN and MSNBC. She has been a featured guest on NPR's "Weekend Edition," PBS NewsHour, MSNBC's Morning Joe, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Reviews
"Denise Kiernan recreates, with cinematic vividness and clarity, the surreal Orwell-meets-Margaret Atwood environment of Oak Ridge as experienced by some of the women who were there: secretaries, technicians, a nurse, a statistician, a leak pipe inspector, a chemist, and a janitor."--DailyBeast.com
I love these kinds of books, and this is a great one....It s a phenomenal story. --Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
"The Girls of Atomic City" is the best kind of nonfiction: marvelously reported, fluidly written, and a remarkable story about a remarkable group of women who performed clandestine and vital work during World War II. Denise Kiernan recreates this forgotten chapter in American history in a work as meticulous and brilliant as it is compulsively readable. --Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City
"A lively story about the tens of thousands of women who made the bomb -- from the power-plant janitor struggling each day through the mud to the exiled physicist in Sweden -- "The Girls of Atomic City" offers a bottom-up history revealing that the atomic bomb was not simply the product of J. Robert Oppenheimer's genius, but also of the work of women at every level of education and class."--BrainPickings.org
Kiernan s focus is on the intimate and often strange details of work and life at Oak Ridge. It s told in a novelistic style and is an intimate look at the experiences of the young women who worked at Oak Ridge and the local residents whose lives were changed by the presence of the project. --The San Francisco Book Review
Fascinating ... Kiernan has amassed a deep reservoir of intimate details of what life was like for women living in the secret city, gleaned from seven years of interviews and research. ... Rosie, it turns out, did much more than drive rivets. --The Washington Post
Kiernan s book, the result of seven years of research and interviews with the surviving 'girls, ' sparkles with their bright, WWII slang and spirit, and takes readers behind the scenes into the hive-like encampments and cubicles where they spent their days and nights. "The Girls of Atomic City" brings to light a forgotten chapter in our history that combines a vivid, novelistic story with often troubling science. --Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"As most of us are all too aware, the generation who fought in World War II or supported the effort from home are leaving us -- their children, grandchildren, and greats -- to carry on without them. Thanks to author Kiernan, we hear from a group of that generation's women, now in their eighties and nineties, whose wartime experience matched no one else's. Ever. Anywhere."--Seattle Post-Intelligencer
I love these kinds of books, and this is a great one....It s a phenomenal story. --Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
"The Girls of Atomic City" is the best kind of nonfiction: marvelously reported, fluidly written, and a remarkable story about a remarkable group of women who performed clandestine and vital work during World War II. Denise Kiernan recreates this forgotten chapter in American history in a work as meticulous and brilliant as it is compulsively readable. --Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City
"A lively story about the tens of thousands of women who made the bomb -- from the power-plant janitor struggling each day through the mud to the exiled physicist in Sweden -- "The Girls of Atomic City" offers a bottom-up history revealing that the atomic bomb was not simply the product of J. Robert Oppenheimer's genius, but also of the work of women at every level of education and class."--BrainPickings.org
Kiernan s focus is on the intimate and often strange details of work and life at Oak Ridge. It s told in a novelistic style and is an intimate look at the experiences of the young women who worked at Oak Ridge and the local residents whose lives were changed by the presence of the project. --The San Francisco Book Review
Fascinating ... Kiernan has amassed a deep reservoir of intimate details of what life was like for women living in the secret city, gleaned from seven years of interviews and research. ... Rosie, it turns out, did much more than drive rivets. --The Washington Post
Kiernan s book, the result of seven years of research and interviews with the surviving 'girls, ' sparkles with their bright, WWII slang and spirit, and takes readers behind the scenes into the hive-like encampments and cubicles where they spent their days and nights. "The Girls of Atomic City" brings to light a forgotten chapter in our history that combines a vivid, novelistic story with often troubling science. --Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"As most of us are all too aware, the generation who fought in World War II or supported the effort from home are leaving us -- their children, grandchildren, and greats -- to carry on without them. Thanks to author Kiernan, we hear from a group of that generation's women, now in their eighties and nineties, whose wartime experience matched no one else's. Ever. Anywhere."--Seattle Post-Intelligencer
