Help Wanted for Secret City: Recruiting Workers for the Manhattan Project at Oak

Ridge, Tennessee, 1942-1946

Author(s): Russell Olwell
Source: Tennessee Historical Quarterly , Spring 1999, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Spring 1999), pp.
52-69
Published by: Tennessee Historical Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42627449

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New schools and housing were some of the enticements used to draw labor to
the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge. Both would become sources of grievances for workers.

52

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(Library Picture Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives)

53

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 54

ers, and women to Tennessee with promises of bet-

District in 1942, General Leslie Groves, the ter jobs, higher pay, and increased job opportunities.
At top District the military
top militaryfounding
official inof 1942, official
the crash projectof toGeneral the of Manhattan the Leslie crash Groves, project Engineer the to To further attract workers to Oak Ridge, the Army
build the atomic bomb, knew that success depended built thousands of housing and dormitory units, pro-
on more than scientific brains and engineering viding shops, cafeterias, and laundry facilities for its
expertise. It would also require the skill, muscle, workers. During World War II, Oak Ridge was a
and attention of tens of thousands of construction federally-owned, operated, and -governed company
workers, electricians, and production workers. The town; the army even restricted entry to the city.
three sites chosen for the Manhattan Project- Within the gates, the military attempted to provide
Hanford, Washington, Los Alamos, New Mexico, every necessary service for its residents.
and what would become known as Oak Ridge, The Manhattan Project's recruiting strategy
Tennessee-made the problem more difficult, as was nothing particularly new to Anderson County
each was in a sparsely settled area with few estab- residents. During the previous decade, they had wit-
lished industries. However, Groves was convinced nessed similar efforts from the Tennessee Valley
that the atomic bombs needed to be developed Authority (TVA) in the construction of the Norris
inland from the seacoasts, where it would be possi- Dam and the town of Norris. Like TVA, the
ble to maintain secrecy about the project. With these Manhattan Project drew workers both from the local
factors in mind, Groves gave the necessary orders to community (skilled and unskilled) and from distant
bring workers from across the country to the areas (mostly skilled workers in short supply
Clinton Engineer Works, later known as Oak Ridge. locally). However, unlike most TVA dam construc-
Federal restrictions on wartime labor recruiting tion projects, which employed a majority of work-
made fulfilling Groves's orders even more difficult; ers for less than a year, many construction and
industrial recruiters faced a frustrating system of production workers at Oak Ridge stayed on as part
constraints from several Federal agencies on what of the new community, forming a core of permanent
they could offer prospective employees. The residents.2
Federal War Manpower Commission [WMC] regu- After World War II, residents of Oak Ridge
lated recruiting practices by companies engaged in soon rebelled against the military's tight control of
war work to prevent "labor piracy." The National their city. Residents protested military rules that
War Labor Board [NWLB] held wage increases to barred visits by union organizers to the city, and
the rate of inflation to keep wartime inflation in prohibited distribution of unofficial literature. They
check.1 This system of regulations restricted the resented the policy of evicting workers from their
ability of the Manhattan Project to recruit solely on homes after dismissal. The promises of housing,
the basis of wages. This inability to offer higher steady work, and a decent community that initially
wages threatened to doom the efforts to recruit hun- convinced workers to move to Oak Ridge were no
dreds of thousands of workers to a remote location, longer viewed as promises, but instead became
northwest of Knoxville, where they would do diffi- demands by workers and their families. In 1946,
cult and tedious work. several labor unions embraced these new demands,
The Manhattan Project circumvented these challenging the military's control of the city and
federal restrictions by offering non-wage incentives questioning the benevolence of the contractors that
to workers, which supplemented higher than aver- ran Oak Ridge's atomic facilities. Therefore, work-
age wages as a source of recruits. These incentives ers used the wartime recruitment promises against
included on-site housing in houses, dormitories, and the army, just as the Congress of Industrial
trailers, creating enough steady work for entire fam- Organizations (CIO) used welfare capitalist strate-
ilies to come to the site, and a good educational sys- gies of the 1920s against the employers who had
tem for the children of workers. Additionally, adopted them.3
Manhattan Project contractors disregarded govern- Official histories of the Manhattan Project deal
mental restrictions on "labor piracy" in order to only tangentially with the issue of recruitment of
bring African Americans, white agricultural work- workers at Oak Ridge, focusing on the administra-

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 tion, the project.5 The article concludes
scientific, and with a short en
ject. Standard
description of how after works
the war, workers and their
Oscar families used these Army promises to demand
Anderson's The the
United States rights and services they had been denied at Oak
Atomic
I, 1939-1946; Vincent Jones's Manhattan: The Ridge during World War II.
Army and the Atomic Bomb' and Richard Hewlett
and Francis Duncan's Atomic Shield: A History of The Importance of Construction
the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and Industrial Recruitment
Volume II, 1947-52 are top-down histories, analyz-
ing Oak Ridge from the perspective of policy mak- From the beginning, the Manhattan Project's
ers, not workers. More recent work, such as Charles leadership recognized the importance of labor, both
Johnson and Charles Jackson's City Behind a Fence skilled and unskilled, to its eventual success.
and Peter Bacon Hales 's Atomic Spaces: Living on General Leslie Groves envisioned that the project
the Manhattan Project focus more on the daily life would involve tens of thousands of workers, but
of the people who lived and worked at Oak Ridge.4 actually it became much larger, eventually employ-
However, no account of the Manhattan Project at ing a total of 500,000 workers, with a peak of
Oak Ridge has examined the nationwide effort to 80,000 construction workers and 40,000 production
recruit workers and the changes these workers or factory workers at any one time.
brought to the city. This article describes the short- The WMC, charged with regulating and coor-
age of construction and production workers faced dinating the flow of workers in war industries, real-
by the Manhattan Project, the promises that induced ized that the Manhattan Project had a seemingly
workers to come to Oak Ridge, and the reasons a unlimited demand for workers. A WMC report for
diverse body of workers agreed to come work on Knoxville, Tennessee, dated December 15, 1943,
noted that, "the unknown
demand at Clinton Engineer
Works overshadows all known
demand. Despite hiring, which
has taken place at this project
for the past four months, it is
entirely possible that the
demand for the forecast period
will double or triple the known
demand."6 Despite the WMC's
cooperation in recruitment,
labor shortages were chronic at
Oak Ridge. In 1943 the project
estimated that it would need
11,117 recruits to bring its labor
force up to necessary staffing
levels. This number included
1,851 carpenters, 530 electri-
cians, and 4,482 laborers and
tenders. Two years later, the
project speculated that it needed
General Leslie Groves oversaw the project in great detail, personally keeping track
4,000 more workers to staff the
factories
OF MANPOWER AND LABOR PROBLEMS. THIS CHART FOLLOWED THE ACCIDENTS RATES FOR WORK- at Oak Ridge, over and
ERS EXPOSED TO NEW, AND SOMETIMES HAZARDOUS, CHEMICAL AND NUCLEAR JOBS. above those required to replace
(Photograph courtesy of the author) workers that quit or were fired

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56

from the Employment Service of proje

the War Manpower
Commission.12
could have dela
entific or techn
ally Without descriptions of the place
kept of work, or the
track
His importance of the product being built, such adver-dia
wartime
tleneckstisements were not particularly
due effective. to
construction Faced with a labor shortage in Knoxville, many
lab
SkilledOak Ridge contractors
labor searched for workers in rural in
In someareas outside the city. Oak Ridge contractor
situati
able Tennessee
than Eastman Corporation (TEC) recruited in
scien
a Knoxville, Lenoir City, and La Follette,
surplus. Gro and sur-
Ridge veyed households
constru to determine potentially employ-
able members of the household. Stone and Webster
300-400 electr
loans Engineering, an electri
of Oak Ridge construction contractor,
from recruited
4 throughout to the rural South,6stopping in m
caused oneby
recruiting tour at Tutwiler,
lack Marks, Webb,
connectBatesville, Sardis,
the and Crenshaw, Mississippl.13
pip In
one Tennessee city, a manufacturer
threatened to of ferro-man- b
later, ganese
Groves complained that Stone and Webster, to cir- w
down cumvent
for wartime restriction of employed
lack workers'
reachedmovements, was
the "encouraging our men to quit and
poi
a take 30 days off to qualify them to take a job at [Oak
month."9
DuringRidge]. We have
the recently lost a large number
wa of
had employees on this
few account and unless it is stopped
surplu
Ridge. promptly
The we will be forced to curtail production."14
WM
would be At times recruitment
only became a covert opera-
femaletion for companies in need of construction labor.
entrant
area.10The J.A. Jones construction company, an Oak Ridge
With su
contractor,
tional sent recruiters into rural Georgia,
securi
Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama abi
recruiter's in search of
army workers, and trucked them north without receiving
offered p
clearance from the WMC. Farmers and other
come to Oak Ri
employers in these areas filed complaints with the
than-average
other WMC against J.A. Jones for illegal recruiting, par-
enticemen
them ticularly in Mississippi and Alabama.
more mo In August
and we1943, gave
WMC officials in Alabama complained
th that
The "a Jones
secrecy construction representative [backed up] a
Ridge truck on the parking lot at the rec
made United States
tisement Employment Service foroffice in Mobile, andc pre-
few sumed
details to load it up with some forty
to Negroes to be
i
simply read: transported to a construction job in Knoxville." The
Alabama WMC charged Jones with "labor pirat-
Construction laborers needed by vital war job in ing," though no penalty was imposed for this inci-
the vicinity of Knoxville, Tennessee. Working 5$ dent.15
hours per week - $0.575 per hour for 40 hours, plus
The army itself also combed the South for
$0.8625 per hour for additional 1 8 hours, making a
weekly total of $38, weather permitting. Adequate
workers at Oak Ridge. In 1944, the Manhattan
facilities for room and board on project reserva- District sent forty-one recruiters out across the
tion. Transportation paid. . . . Apply United Statès region in search of workers, targeting Nashville,

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 Memphis,
Oak Ridge, due toKnoxvi
the location of the facility in a
Tennessee, and
coal mining area. During World Warcitie
II, Tennessee
Alabama.16ranked tenth inSkilled
the nation in coal production; in c
Anderson County,
carpenters, 20% of men over age fourteen
electricia
from as worked in the away
far mines.19 In her autobiographical
as
through novel,
skilled The War at Home, Connie Green
trade describes
Finding her family's journey from coal country, where her
potential re
ing these father
samewas a mine supervisor, to Oak Ridge, where
peopl
security he worked in one of the plants. The atmosphere of
screenings
unpublishedOak Ridge, the company-owned
diary housing, and the
by
and Carbide Chemic
long hours resembled coal towns. The most striking
Lane, his difference
company was that in Oak Ridge, workers' childrenre
per week, attended
and school until age half
eighteen, instead of leav-
of
preliminarying at fourteen to intervie
work in the mines. For many par-
conditions ents, including
led Green's, education
qualif was the
Lane noteddeterminingthat
factor in relocating to Oak Ridge.
"secu
and those Farmers were anothercould
who source of Oak Ridge's m
ments workers. Some farmers worked
would not on a seasonal basis,li
Once located and
returning to their home acc
community in the summer
be trained; between
after a winter of construction at Oak Ridge. Other 1
in farmers commuted
training atto Oak anyRidge every weekon and
alone.17 boarded with farm families
Just as surrounding
scien the com-
produce grams
plex before returning to their farmsofon weekends. u
John Corbin Van Hooser
unprocessed and his brother-in-law
uranium
trainers Shelah Daniel, for example,
such as were concrete con-
Lane
and struction
community workers, who commuted outweekly from o
home front America.
their farms near Woodbury, Tennessee, some 130
The task of recruitment was made more diffi- miles southwest of Oak Ridge. These workers
cult by the job, training, and security requirements. stayed first with the family of a miner at Coalmont,
At Tennessee Eastman, young women recruiters and then later with a farm family outside Lenoir
were sent to Arkansas, North Carolina, and City. Others used the money gained at Oak Ridge to
Kentucky in search of young women graduating support the farm that they rented to sharecroppers,
high school who were looking for work. Each year, or left to the management of their wives and fami-
recruiters interviewed 15,000 to 20,000 potential lies in their absence. Finally, there were farmers
woman employees, to yield only 1,700 Tennessee who aspired to be land owners; they sought money
Eastman workers. Men at Tennessee Eastman were through industrial work to pay for their start in agri-
recruited by advertisements and word of mouth,
culture. Manhattan Project officials understood that
yielding as many as 1,000 applicants per day.18 their project was not the top priority for workers,
noting that they had to recruit "even farmers in the
Who Was Recruited to Come To Oak Ridge? vicinity who found it necessary to absent them-
selves frequently in order to keep their farms
The U.S. Army and its contractors recruited
going."20
their work force from a few key groups: coal min- Other workers migrated from industrial facili-
ers, farmers, and men and women involved in rural ties, rural or urban. Typical of these workers was
industry. Each of these groups had seen hard timesOliver Evans, a production worker originally from
in the 1930s, and were therefore attracted to the rel- Metropolis, Illinois, who served two and a half
atively high cash wages paid at Oak Ridge. Formeryears in the Pacific with the army, then came to Oak
coal miners provided a large group of workers forRidge to work in the plants, drawn by high wages.

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 58

He, like many

were twenty-eight o
or younger. Since little new hir-
war.21 Other wo
ing had occurred between 1945 and 1948, it can be
such as lumbe
estimated that the average Oak Ridge worker at the
from Mississipp
end of the war was between twenty-four and thirty-
offer of
two years old.26a high
to Knoxville.
Each of the different groups coming to Oak
Mississippi,
Ridge to work in construction or told
production came
lumber compan
from backgrounds of scarcity and insecurity. While
moneythe wartime
to suppo
security system and segregated housing
25 per kept
week."22
workers apart, in the postwar period this com-
the lumber
mon desire for steady work and com
higher wages would
wouldn't
be channeled intogive it
union and community organizing.
he would give
Tennessee to
Women Workers at Oak Ridge
Harvey Hartf
explained, "I
At Oak Ridge, as in other qu
parts of the country
told me
during World War II,a women movedgov into industrial
Knoxville
work in unprecedented and w
numbers. Unlike other war
could industries, women
get as at Oak Ridgemandid not replace
Manymen, but migran
were present at the creation of the industry
entire family,
itself. Oak Ridge companies recruited rural womena
both male and female members. Colleen Black from the local area for both office and factory jobs.
remembered: For women from rural backgrounds, these jobs were
a significant step up the economic ladder. Helen
We moved from a two story house in Nashville to
Hall, just out of high school in 1943, took a job at
a double trailer in K-25 [a mobile home camp for
construction workers]. . my mother and fatherTennessee Eastman in Oak Ridge because it offered
and eight brothers and sisters. I was the ninth child. "higher pay than any factories paid in the area" and
The tenth child was fighting in the Army overseas.she saw it as a way of "helping the boys." For
That's why we came to Oak Ridge - to win thewomen, working at Oak Ridge was attractive com-
war, to bring him home. . . . My mother had never pared to other low- wage jobs available to them,
worked before, but she went down and got a job.
such as the textile industry. The organized social
My father worked at J.A. Jones, and I worked at
[Oak Ridge construction contractor] Ford, Bacon activities at Oak Ridge, such as weekly dances and
and Davis, and mother worked at Carbide.24 movies, gave women more freedom than normally
was possible in most rural, coal, or textile town set-
For Black, Oak Ridge was a step up for the entire
tings. Many of these women would remain after the
family, as jobs were available for family members
war, taking permanent jobs with the companies at
above age eighteen. Oak Ridge or remaining as spouses of men who
worked there.
One thing united workers from Oak Ridge:
their relative youth. The Tennessee EastmanWomen whose husbands were unemployed or
Corporation, which operated the Y-12 plant athad
Oakdeserted them worked at Oak Ridge to support
their families. Lillie Phillips was a professional
Ridge, hired workers at an average age of twenty-
eight for women and thirty-five for men. Fewerhousekeeper
than at Oak Ridge, cleaning dormitory
one-half of Y-12 workers had graduated four rooms.
years In addition, Phillips kept house for as many
of high school, though 67% had graduated at as
least
eleven relatives at her home, who passed through
eighth grade.25 Even in 1949, when Carbon and
Oak Ridge to work, or were on their way to other
employment.27 Phillips, the sole wage earner,
Carbide Chemicals published a survey of its work-
ers, over one-half of its male workers were below
depended on her job to keep herself and her children
age thirty-six and one-half of its female workers
economically afloat.

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 Other women worke
status, lower paying jobs where they tended or mon-
ing food itored
and production machinery.
supplies
Women's grievances
who worked at
within the factories and in the the
community were, in
many ways, about
interviewer greater than those held by men.
her
to find However, sex segregation
food tokept women apart
put from o
dents other Oak Ridge workers,
faced long and the companies, asline
well as the womennecessit
day-to-day themselves, were aware that
workweek. these wartimeForjobs for women were womeconsidered
the "temporary" until the plants
pressures to closed or thebe
men at
almost intolerable.
returned from war to take women's place.
vided a laundry servi
lies, and housekeepi
African-Americans in Oak Ridge
dormitories, shoppin
"An Employed Cou
World War II offered unparalleled economic
Ridge opportunities for African- American
Journal : workers in the
South. Industries once closed to African Americans
Ifwe are on the
openly recruited their labor, job fro
President Roosevelt set
requested and urged, wh
up a Fair Employment Practices Committee to end
camp - all the stores are ready to close.
Everything has been picked over until only the racial discrimination by wartime industries, and
worse and sometimes none is left. ... If this pro- under federal watch and pressure, the practice of
ject's main aim is winning the war, then why not public lynching in the South finally ended.
give working couples a chance so that they can be However, these policies and changes did not end or
on the job and help get this thing over with?29
prevent racial segregation at Oak Ridge.
Despite some policies aimed at reducing racial
Lack of housing and child care hit women
discrimination, the federal government imposed
hardest, especially those who were the sole wage
segregation at Oak Ridge. The area in which Oak
earners. Oak Ridge housing policy was sex-biased,
Ridge was located had been a checkerboard of black
viewing women as dependents who were not eligi-
and white farms for generations, but when the army
ble to register for a place to live. Mona Myers, a
built Oak Ridge, it created separate colored and
TEC production worker wrote to the WMC:
white living areas. The army segregated housing,
I do know that you have asked us women who shopping, and transportation in the city. Through
could to go to work. I am taking training for a war leases and contracts the army controlled the busi-
job at Tennessee Eastman. While in training a rep- nesses and even the bus system at Oak Ridge, using
resentative of our company signed us up for a this power to enforce racial segregation. One white
house. Now that I am in the area they tell me that resident remembers that as a small child, a bus dri-
because my husband does not work for our com- ver chased him to the front of the bus since he was
pany I am not eligible for a house, even though I
make enough to look after my family. . . . My hus- sitting in the "wrong section."31 The army con-
band is a Southern Railway employee and only structed segregated and unequal communities for
home during the weekends, so I have to be home black and white workers at Oak Ridge. At the begin-
part of each day because I have two small daugh- ning of the war, black married couples were not
ters. ... I don't understand why if we women can
allowed to live together: black women lived in seg-
do a man's job we can't rent a house? ... If indus-
regated dormitories while men lived in the "colored
try is going to do this to women, how can they ask
us to leave our homes and families and go to
hutments." Colored hutments were one small room,
work?30 with no plumbing, and were rented to four men at a
time.
Women played a vital role Oak Ridge's labor The Manhattan Project did not invent the prac-
force. However, in the social and work world at Oak tice of racial segregation in company towns. It drew
Ridge, women workers were segregated into low- both from the experience of coal companies, which

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60

Although the Manhattan Project offered higher than usual wages to African-American workers,
THESE COLORED AND WHITE OUTHOUSES WERE PART OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S IMPOSED RACIAL SEGREGATION AT OAK RIDGE.
(Photograph by Ed Westcott, National Archives and Records Administration)

if they hired blacks at all, housed them in separate After arriving at Oak Ridge by bus or truck,
sections of the company town, and of the Tennessee blacks confronted many of the same problems they
Valley Authority, which had housed black workers hoped they had left behind in the deep South. Black
in separate and substandard housing at dam con- workers were disappointed to learn that previously
struction sites in Tennessee.32 Major Oak Ridge con- undisclosed racial policies limited their earning
tractors, like Tennessee Eastman, operated in power. African-American worker Lee Crawford
planned segregated communities such as Kingsport, told the WMC, "I quit working for the S.K.
Tennessee. Project administrators defended the Fergusen company because [the recruiter] told me
practice of racial segregation as an adaptation to the that I could make 7-8 cents more per hour in
racial mores of the area. One personnel officer Tennessee as a truck driver or tractor operator. Upon
recalled that the "government had to attract people arriving here I was told colored people were not
to the project with houses near to what they were allowed to drive trucks."35 African Americans were
used to. Black housing was better than what a black assigned the most menial and unskilled tasks, as
worker in Mississippi would have had, while a "common laborers, janitors and domestic work-
white scientist wouldn't feel the same way."33 ers."36 Blacks were not considered for transfers to
However both the conditions of the hutments and higher paying job categories or for promotion by the
the top-down imposition of racial segregation horri- companies at Oak Ridge and were often discrimi-
fied many whites. One worker recalled that the nated against for skilled construction or production
"black hutments [were] a real disgrace."34 Though jobs.37
whites did little (and could do little) during the war Why did Africa Americans come to a place
to change army policies, this obvious discrimination where they still had to endure segregation and
led some white Oak Ridgers to work for school andreceive the lowest-paid jobs? Valerie Steele
housing desegregation in the 1950s. explains that blacks received "higher pay than they

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 had ever scribed their lives. All workers wore badges,
known" at went O
the Great through numerous checkpoints and guard posts on a
Depression
forbidding. Life
daily basis, and had
were barred from meeting in groups
vival, larger than threeon
living without army the
permission. Skilled b
Ridge, or unskilled, black
some of or white, these
male or female, all
not eliminated."38
workers and their family members at Oak RidgeA
knew that a was
"everybody violation of securitysoat Oak Ridge
gl
money. would mean
We their immediate termination. Signs
weren't m
spite of racial
were posted all over the citydiscri
letting workers know
generally what
paidthey were supposed
muchto do, and what they b
Construction laborers made a minimum of 57.5 should refrain from doing. The most emblematic of
cents per hour, plus overtime, for a weekly total
these, which hangs today in the Museum of Energy
at Oak Ridge, is simply an image of Uncle Sam with
averaging $38. Since this would be a 50% raise for
his finger over his tightly clenched lips. Other cam-
some workers, it was a significant draw northward.40
paigns urged Oak Ridge workers to reduce absen-
In the midst of a South that still clung to sharecrop-
teeism, inefficiency, loafing, and griping. These
ping and domestic service as the major job opportu-
nities for blacks, a high cash wage was a key to and slogans set the tone for the city during
signs
greater personal freedom as well as prosperity. World War II - one of a work force that asked no
questions, getting on with the business of winning
Security - A Sign of the Times the war.
The security system affected workers both
The common denominator of all workers at inside and outside the plants. Workers were
screened for security clearance by the army, and
Oak Ridge was the way security concerns circum-

Security at the top-secret Oak Ridge works meant no on-site elections which might tip off outsiders
TO THE CITY'S EXISTENCE. WORKERS WERE REQUIRED TO VOTE AS ABSENTEES TO THEIR HOME TOWNS UNTIL
THE FIRST LOCAL ELECTION AT OAK RIDGE IN 1946. (PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR)

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 62

were were effective in keeping workers isolated

cleared byand
quiet. Asintegrit
loyalty, one employee remembered, one "didn't
for instance, mind keeping quiet because the alternative was get- re
reference ting shipped overseas."48 check
This security system
rejected served, during the war, to keep workers em
for isolated,
history.42 Secur
and after the war, it continued to make employment
more than
at Oak Ridge insecure for workers.thre
cover agents m
Manhattan District documents show that there were The End of the War
at least eighteen full-time undercover intelligence
agents at Oak Ridge, and 178 full-time intelligence As Oak Ridge slowly moved from being a tem-
and security personnel. This total did not even porary to a permanent community, residents began
include the 866 military guards in the community to demand more from the federal government, bas-
and installations.43 All movements
were monitored. One worker
recalled, "Everyone had to wear a
badge. And even if you walked
out on the streets and went to a
movie, you should wear a badge.
And you were stopped at the gates
going into the city to make sure
that you had your badge. . Z'44
Even mundane activities
were used to keep tabs on
employees. At the Oak Ridge
post office, the security system
was part of routine mail delivery.
One postal worker recalled that
the workers at the office
"recorded magazines received
and the point of origin of letters,
for FBI and military intelli-
gence."45 Another post office
employee recalled that ordinary
At Oak Ridge, the end of World War 11 meant that these celebrants' purpose
people in Oak Ridge sent reports
TO DEFEAT THE AXIS POWERS WAS ATAN END TOO. PEOPLE RECRUITED TO THE CITY
to military intelligence by send-TO WORK HAD TO DECIDE WHETHER TO REMAIN THERE WITH AN UNCERTAIN

ing letters to "Acme Credit FUTURE OR TO RETURN HOME. (PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR)

Corporation with any reports."46

At the post office, many such letters arrived daily
for this bogus company.
Other employees confirm that the security sys-
tem prevented any open communication between
workers about job-related issues. One man recalled,
"After a while, you got so used to the thing, and the
security program was so successful, you just had no
desire to talk about it [or its product]."47 The implicit
threats of the system, losing one's job, being evicted
from Oak Ridge, and being drafted by the military,
ing their claims on a number of different grounds.
However, their grievances had one thing in com-
mon: all wanted a permanent home in Oak Ridge,
and all demanded that the military and the Atomic
Energy Commission, which took over control of
Oak Ridge in 1947, treat them as citizens, rather
than as subjects. While workers complained about
Manhattan Project housing policies during the war,
small quarters and lack of comfort were grudgingly
accepted as part of the patriotic effort. With the end

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 of the American defense
war, effort, and that its workers and
however,
live intrailers
residents deserved respect. or dor
houses in Oak
Many residents based Ridge.
their right to Oak Ridge
they had the right
housing on the grounds that they were world War toII
a right veterans. John F. Edwards
that wrote
previou
military.
The decision to stay or leave at the end of the I would like to speak to you about the housing sit-
uation for veterans in Oak Ridge, which is very rot-
war was vital to Oak Ridge's transformation. The
ten. I am a veteran and have a small family, with
end of the war led to a massive drop in the city's
two small kids, one of them an infant. ... I have
population. In September 1, 1945, there were been ordered to move into a VC-1, which does not
71,327 residents of Oak Ridge. In the space of have any heating system at all, with the exception
ninety days, this dropped to 59,499, a decline of of an oil stove that it takes 7 gallons for every 24
12,000 residents, or 17%. On June 1, 1946, this hour period. And then it doesn't keep it warm.
number shrunk to a low of 43,742.49 This drop in Which I absolutely cannot afford at 85 cents an
hour. Along with the other veterans of the city, I
population changed the character of Oak Ridge
would like to see this matter investigated thor-
from a crowded, bustling place to a more stable, oughly. Give us a chance to be equal with every-
relaxed community. Many workers simply left at the one.54
end of the war to return home or seek work else-
where. As one worker recalled, "Some people justThis same perception that wartime service at Oak
packed up and left the day after they found out what Ridge equaled veteran status led some residents to
we were making."50 For most, leaving was not a demand other considerations. A worker wrote about
decision based on moral discomfort with the bomb, his eviction:
but a suspicion that war-related enterprises would
shut down and lay off workers, at a time when mil- I am writing in regard to an injury I received while
lions of servicemen would be returning home look- working in the Atomic Plant here. ... I am still
under a doctor's care and am unable to work. Since
ing for work.
TEC terminated their contract here, I have been
Another resident recalled, "There was so much
terminated. The housing authority has asked me to
consideration [after the war] as to what was going to vacate their house by October 31, 1947. 1 feel I am
happen to Oak Ridge, whether it was going to go up unable to do so as I have no place to go. ... As a
or down. A lot of people were leaving with the idea citizen of the United States and a believer in

that it would just become a ghost town. Others were democracy, I don't feel as though I am getting a
fair deal, as I was working for TEC on a govern-
willing to take a chance."51 Those who decided to stay
ment job.55
made, perhaps without realizing the consequences
fully, an investment in the community. As a worker
Changes in American society during and after
recalled, "At the beginning Oak Ridge was an armythe war meant that women workers also demanded
base, but it gradually developed into a town."52
the right to housing. A veteran wrote to
Once people made this decision to stay, their
Representative Estes Kefauver that women should
interest in the political life of the community
be recognized as the head of household when the
increased dramatically. A resident recalled, "In 1945
husband attends college full-time:
and 1946, people were wanting to be real citizens,
that's why they got so involved with politics. They There are, in Oak Ridge, many married veterans
were planning to stay around. They had jobs here, who are now attending the University of Tennessee,
you see. And then the housing opened up and peo- but who were, until recently, employed in the Oak
ple could have a home here or rent a home. They Ridge plants. Our wives are now employed in the
Oak Ridge plants, school system, etc. The housing
wanted to stay and the children could go to school.
section is refusing to allow us to continue living in
It was beginning to become a city on its own."53 Out
the houses we now occupy, even though our wives
of this new sense of community came an awareness are employed. The housing section maintains that it
that Oak Ridge was an important part of the only rents to heads of families who are working at

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64

Oak Demands for a

Ridge. better
. deal.
by African
. Th
fore, have no
Americans at Oak Ridge are ch
especially illustrative
Such doings make
of this pattern. With the end of the war, the black
so-called rights an
community would no longer accept substandard
These housing
rightsnow that they saw themselves as a perma- w
need ofnent part of Oak Ridge. But African Americans at
housing
A Oak Ridge found that changing
woman resid these conditions
"I havewas difficult.
a The quality
legal of housing and facilities r
am provided for blacks
Mrs. during the war were far worse
Ameri
to a than that provided to white workers.
house and Due to the
house Manhattan
for Project's, and later me
the AEC's, contin-
room ued policies of racial segregation,
and small African-
American demands
housing be were met with delays,
bui rather
than action.
extreme, but it
Ridge On December 29, 1945, the Chicago Defender
felt en
began
cramped a series of articles
condi about blacks at Oak
workersRidge, with the about
story "Atomic City Birthplace of
niencesParadoxes: Negro
worker Kids Can't Go To School at
were Biggest Brain Center." Enoc
now Waters, a Defender
argum
correspondent,
believed viewed
the Oak Ridge as a "city
Fe of

Substandard housing, such as this hutment built for African-American workers during the war, remained a racial
issue following the war. A Chicago reporter in 1945 wrote that "it is the first community I have ever seen with
SLUMS THAT WERE DELIBERATELY PLANNED. " (PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR)

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 paradoxes." Waters
at Oak Ridge more appealing than existing farm or o
dollars are factory marshaled
work. Second, in the postwar years, workers
but not viewed these recruitment strategies
enough penni as unkept
for the welfare and comfort of a few thousand promises, which in turn encouraged labor organiz-
Negro workers." While most black ghettos were ing around the issues of housing, steadiness of
the remnants of housing left behind by whites,work, and wages. When, at the end of the war, the
Waters considered Oak Ridge as "unique. It is army
the sought to raise rents, lay off workers, and trim
social programs, workers viewed these actions as
first community I have ever seen with slums that
were deliberately planned. The concept back of breaking
the the promises that had attracted them to
planning and operation of this small city is as back-
Oak Ridge. Thus, in the recruitment strategy of the
ward sociologically as the atomic bomb is Manhattan Project lay the seeds of discontent.
advanced scientifically. The ignorance, prejudice The layoffs carried out in 1945 and 1946
and fascism of one is as apparent as the knowledge, prompted workers to begin organizing unions at all
enlightenment, efficiency and patriotism that char- three Oak Ridge plants. The lack of seniority pro-
acterized the other." tection in the plants meant that workers could be
Waters noted that African-American children laid off at any time, and, due to army rules, had to
were attending school at an all-black high school in move off the reservation immediately upon losing
Knoxville, rather than in Oak Ridge. He also dis- their jobs. As the CIO newspaper for Oak Ridge,
covered that though the government claimed to be The Atomic Worker, stated, "What will it profit a
following "local custom" in segregating Oak Ridge, man to be able to vote for his representatives in
some towns and surrounding cities, particularly government if on the following morning he receives
Knoxville, treated black citizens far better than the an eviction notice from his house? How much con-
army. Waters wrote that the army, "far from adopt- solation for him to be told that he is a free American
ing a 'local custom,' has in fact introduced at Oak citizen, if after long, patient toil on his job, he is ter-
Ridge a social pattern that is actually foreign to the minated to make way for a less experienced person
area."58 Even as Waters reported, however, the situ- willing to work for 50 cents less per hour?" This
ation was becoming somewhat better for blacks at linkage of employment and housing was a sore
Oak Ridge; families were to be moved out of hut- issue with workers and families after the war, as
ments and into "victory cottages" which had glass only at Manhattan Project sites was a whole family
windows and were raised off the ground. Yet no evicted when a person lost their job.
blacks were offered the "attractive little frame cot- Problems with community services such as
tages that stand vacant throughout the project," an housing, laundry, food shopping, and cafeterias also
omission that was a constant aggravation to the prompted protests. Residents of Oak Ridge were no
black community.59 The black press nationwide pub- longer content to suffer inconveniences out of patri-
licized the discriminatory, segregated conditions at otic sacrifice, and began airing their complaints
Oak Ridge, much to the chagrin of the authorities. publicly through letters to union newspapers. One
Though Oak Ridge's schools were not desegregated Oak Ridge resident complained that the food at Oak
until Brown v. Board of Education was enforced in Ridge cafeterias was simply intolerable: "Some of
Tennessee in 1 955, African Americans at Oak Ridge the eating places where you charge prices that
had pressured the federal government to tear down should burden your consciences, are ill-kept,
the hutments and build new housing by 1950. unclean, sometimes no forks, no spoons, or knives.
There are no saucers for your cups; no plates for
Conclusion: Promises Kept and Broken your soggy toast; cold storage eggs; no bacon, no
ham; no sausage."62 With the end of the war, Oak
The recruitment strategy of the Manhattan Ridge residents agitated for better food, lower
Project reveals two key facts: first, Oak Ridge prices, and more choice of vendors in their city.
recruited most of its workers through non-wage As part of a campaign to organize Oak Ridge
incentives and promises that made industrial work workers in 1946, the CIO took up complaints about

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 66

housing 1 946, and in in Oak

two of the three plants at Oak Ridge,
tion NLRB elections approvedpoor
with unions in August 1946,
into theproviding workers
union
with a voice at their job for the
peripheral
first time in Oak Ridge history.
issue
The first local and
cies of state elections were held in Oak
the armRidge in 1946 as
Anderson,well, marking the end of the time
as when Oak Ridgeex
had beenresidents were not denied
allowed to exercise that act of
II. The citizenship
most in their own city. Finally, in 1949
im com-
that munity pressure led to the opening of the commu-
housing at
a job at one
nity to the outside world, when the of fences and army t
Worker checkpoints that had initially surrounded Oak Ridge
reported
worker came down. wasIn the early 1950s, housing was sold to
evi
dence," residents andand the city was incorporated.th African
"under Americans struggled to eliminate the hutment area,
present
ity of and finally succeeded in 1949, while Oak Ridge's
workers
ment reservation
schools were among the first in Tennessee to be
a job."63desegregated in 1955.
The These changes were unthink-
CI
1946 it able during World War II, when no public protest of
brought
if these conditions would have been permitted. f
worker's a
shouldHowever, bethe diverse, disunited,posand pliant work
reached. On
force brought to the project by the army during J
the
reported that
Second World War worked together to transform
Rodgers, a worker at Carbon and Carbide this former military company town into a progres-
Chemicals Corp., who was terminated in May, is sive southern community.
continuing to occupy his house in Oak Ridge,
despite efforts of the Roane-Anderson company to
oust him."64 1 . For a description of NWLB practices, see
Eviction, however, was only one of Oak National War Labor Board, Termination
Ridge's housing problems. As a letter to The Atomic Report (Washington D.C., 1947). For wage
restrictions during the Second World War, see
Worker, dated July 10, 1946, indicates, the wartime
Jerome M. Staller and Loren M. Solnick,
housing crunch had not abated in Oak Ridge. The
"Treatment of Escalators under Wage and
writer reported "the housing situation in Oak Ridge
Price Controls," in John Kraft and Blaine
has been worrying many people who live in trailers
Roberts, eds., Wage and Price Controls: The
and have been trying for many months to get a U.S. Experiment (New York, 1975), 70-79.
house in which to live. Trailers are all right as a See also Hugh Rockoff, Drastic Measures: A
temporary measure, but after months and years they History of Wage and Price Controls in the
get on your nerves."65 As the wartime emergency United States (Cambridge, England, 1 984).
ended, workers expected a higher standard of hous- 2. For TVA hiring practices, see Nancy L.
ing, and the CIO used this desire to their advantage, Grant, TVA and Black Americans: Planning
airing worker complaints about housing and press- for the Status Quo (Philadelphia, 1990), 45-
ing the army to build more housing and to rent it at 72, and Harry L. Case, Personnel Policy in a
reasonable rates. Public Agency: the TVA Experience (New
York, 1955), 8-32.
As a result of worker and community discon-
3. Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal:
tent, Oak Ridge changed drastically between 1945
Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939
and 1949. First, Congress transferred control over
(Cambridge, England, 1990).
the Manhattan Project facility from the U.S. Army
4. Peter Bacon Hales, Atomic Spaces: Living
to the civilian Atomic Energy Commission. Second, on the Manhattan Project (Urbana, 1997),
labor unions began organizing in Oak Ridge in deals with issues of worker recruitment and

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 1943. Folder C530.2,experi
community Series 3, Box 10, RG
Alamos and Oak
211, Region 7, National Archives RegionalR
"Tennessee Branch, East
in
World War
13. United States
Tennessee Commission,
Historical
1992): 51-70, and Charles Johnson and 1943. Series 11, Box 3. Record Group 211,
Charles Jackson, City Behind a Fence
(Knoxville, 1981), also describe some aspects
of recruitment to Oak Ridge. For official
accounts of the Manhattan Project at Oak
Ridge, see Richard Hewlett and Oscar
Anderson, The New World: A History of the
United States Atomic Energy Commission,
Volume I, 1939-1946 (Berkeley, 1990 [1962]);
Vincent Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the
Atomic Bomb (Washington, D.C, 1985);
Richard Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Atomic
Shield: A History of the United States Atomic
Energy Commission, Volume II, 1947-52
(Berkeley, 1990 [1962]), Barton Hacker, The
Dragon s Tail (Berkeley, 1 987).
5. This article focuses exclusively on con-
struction and production workers at Oak
Ridge. My research on the social and labor
history of Oak Ridge did not include the his-
tory of scientists and engineers at the facility.
6. United States War Manpower Commission.
"Labor Market Development Report," 15
December 1943, page 5. Box 11. Record
Group 211, Region 7, National Archives
Regional Branch, East Point, GA. [Hereinafter
LMDR]
7. United States Army, Manhattan Engineer
District. "Manpower Needs," Entry 5, Box 46,
Decimal File 201. Record Group 77, National
Archives, College Park, MD.
8. Leslie Groves, Diaries of General Leslie
Groves, 1 9 June 1 944. Groves Gift Collection,
RG 200, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
[Hereinafter GD]
9. GD, 17 July 1944.
10. LMDR, 8
11. From an interview conducted by Jackson
and Johnson as part of their research for City
Behind a Fence. They graciously allowed me
to use the tapes in dissertation research. To
protect the anonymity of the interview sub-
jects, I have coded the interview data simply
as Jackson and Johnson interview with the
date of the interview.
12. United States War Manpower
Commission, "Advertising copy," 18 October
Point, GA.War an
IIWaron
Management Sta
Letter, Sullivan to Tate, 14 June
Region 7, National Archives Regional Branch,
East Point, GA.
14. United States War Management
Commission, Letter, Ashe to White, 6 July
1943. Series 11, Box 3. Record Group 211,
Region 7, National Archives Regional Branch,
East Point, GA.
15. United States War Manpower
Commission, Letter, Klugh to Ashe, 21
August 1943. Region 7, Series 11, Box 3. RG
211, National Archives Regional Branch, East
Point, GA.
16. United States Army, Manhattan Engineer
District. "Manning of Clinton Engineering
Works," 12 January 1944. Series, 66A962,
Box 14, Entry CEW 004.04. RG 326. National
Archives Regional Branch, East Point, GA.
17. T.E. Lane, "History of Union Carbide
Corporation in the Atomic Energy Industry,"
Unpublished Notes, Possession of Donald
Lane.
18. CEW-TEC History, January 1943-May
1947, June 10, 1947. (Oak Ridge, TN, 1947),
27-8. [Hereinafter, CEW-TEC History ]
19. Medical Survey Group, Coal Mines
Administration, United States Department of
the Interior, Medical Survey of the Bituminous
Coal Industry. 17 March 1947. (Washington,
D.C., 1947).
20. Nichols to Chief of Engineers, 20 August
1945. Entry 66A1405, Box 50, Decimal File
Man 004.03, "E award folder." RG 326,
National Archives Regional Branch, East
Point, GA.
21. Mel Fiske, "Atomic Workers," CIO News
Victory Edition, 24 June 1946.
22. War Manpower Commission, Letter,
Robeson to Shackelford, 21 September 1943.
Box 3, Series 11, Region 7. Record Group
211, National Archives Regional Branch, East
Point, GA.
23. Robeson to Shackelford, 21 September
1943. Box 3, Series 11, Region 7. Record
Group 211, National Archives Regional
Branch, East Point, GA.
24. Colleen Black, Interview by Stanley

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68
Goldberg,
Point, GA.
Videohistory
41. For Civil Service appointees, see Curtis Pr
Session
25.
Tennessee
Recruitment folder, Code 341, Entry 5, Box E
TEC 63, RG 77, Records of the Army Corp33
History, of
26. Carbide and Carbon Chemical Engineers - Manhattan Project.
42. CEW-TEC History, page 28.
Corporation, First Annual Industrial Relations
Report, Oak Ridge Plants, K-25, Y-12 and 43.X-
RG 77, MED E5, 319.1 Box 52. This doc-
10, Fiscal Year 1949. In records of the Atomic
ument is an audit of the MP security division
Energy Commission, RG 326, 67A1058, Box
and lists the numbers and ranks of security and
138, National Archives and Records intelligence personnel throughout the project.
Administration, College Park, MD.
27. Oak Ridge Journal, 8 November 1945.
28. Jackson and Johnson, 26 March 1976.
29. Oak Ridge Journal, 1 March 1946.
30. War Manpower Commission. Letter:
Myers to McNutt, 20 August 1943. Region 7,
Series 10, Box 11, Tennessee folder. Record
Group 211, National Archives Regional
Branch, East Point, GA.
31. Interview with Donald Lane.
32. Grant, TVA and Black Americans, 53 and
55, and passim; K. Crandall Shifflett, Coal
Towns, Life Work and Culture in Company
Towns in Southern Appalachia, 1880-1960
(Knoxville, 1991), 60-66.
33. Jackson and Johnson, 3 April 1976.
34. Ibid, 1 May 1976.
35. War Manpower Commission. Letter:
Robeson to Shackelford, 21 September 1943.
Region 7, Series 11, Box 3. Record Group
211, National Archives Regional Branch, East
Point, GA.
36. Valeria Steele, "A New Hope" in These
Are Our Voices (Oak Ridge, 1987), 200.
37. See Case 7-UR-75, in RG 228 Regional
Files, Region 7- FEPC. Closed cases collec-
tion, Box 4, International Union of Operating
Engineers, Local 917 and 7-BR-177, J. A.
Jones, Co. In both cases, the FEPC investi-
gated discrimination by AFL unions and the
companies involved, who admitted to work-
place segregation and discrimination. Both
cases were closed without resolution by the
FEPC.
38. Steele, "A New Hope," 199.
39. Ibid.
40. United States War Manpower
Commission. Letter: Garner to United States
Employment Service, 18 October 1943. Series
3, Box 10, Folder C530.2. Record Group 211,
National Archives Regional Branch, East
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3 M
5,
Nelson to Chief ofpage
Engineers, 1 March 1945, 5
44. Colleen Black, Interview by Stanley
Goldberg, 3 March 1987, Smithsonian
Videohistory Program, Manhattan Project,
Session 5, page 44. Smithsonian Archives.
45. Jackson and Johnson, 17 July 1976.
46. Ibid, 25 March 1976.
47. Ibid, 3 April 976.
48. Ibid, 24 July 1976.
49. United States Army. Manhattan Engineer
District. Box 74, Folder: Man 091.4, Folder:
"Oak Ridge Census." RG 77, National
Archives, College Park, MD.
50. Jackson and Johnson, 15 May 1976.
51. Ibid, 22 May 1976.
52. Ibid, 17 July 1976.
53. Ibid, April 1976.
54. Letter: John Edwards to David Lilienthal,
20 October 1947. Files: Oak Ridge Operations
Office, Community Affairs, Box 21, Folder
10, "Community management." RG 326
National Archives Regional Branch, East
Point, GA.
55. Letter: James Terry to Mr. Kellar, 28
October 1947. Oak Ridge Operations Office,
Community Affairs, Public Affairs, Box 1,
Complaints. RG 326 National Archives
Regional Branch, East Point, GA.
56. Letter: Lester Templeton to Estes
Kefauver, 27 October 1948. Oak Ridge
Operations Office, Community Affairs,
'Housing Complaints." RG 326 National
Archives Regional Branch, East Point, GA.
57. Letter: Mary King, to Housing, 15 March
1948. Oak Ridge Operations Office,
Community Affairs, Box B054/28/46, Folder
629/1 "Housing- General." RG 326 National
Archives Regional Branch, East Point, GA.
58. Chicago Defender, 29 December 1945.
For evidence of local custom, see Grace
(Raby) Crawford, "Back of Oak Ridge," pg 5-
6 in the Oak Ridge Public Library Oak Ridge
Research Room.
59. Chicago Defender, 5 January 1946. No
black residents of Oak Ridge were quoted in
Water's article. However, Waters could not
have researched and written his story without
the help of the black community in Oak Ridge.
It is probable that individual blacks did not
want to attach their names to criticism of Oak
Ridge out of fear of reprisal.
60. For the end of the hutment era, see G.O.
Robinson to Richard Gehman, 5 May 1949, in
the files of the AEC Secretariat, 1946-1951,
Code 291.2, Segregation folder, RG 326,
National Archives and Records
Administration, College Park, MD.
61. The Atomic Worker, 5 July 1946.
62. Ibid 10 July 1946.
63. Ibid
64. Ibid 5 July 1946.
65. Ibid 10 July 1946.

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