Eight months after the United States entered World War II, the Federal Government launched the Manhattan Project, an all-out, but highly secret, effort to build an atomic bomb—and to build one before the Germans did. The task was to translate the vast energy released by atomic fission into a weapon of unprecedented power. On December 2, 1942, a group of distinguished physicists, working under top-secret conditions in an unpretentious laboratory at the University of Chicago, took a crucial step towards this goal: they created the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Nobel prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi directed the experiment.
Fermi directed the construction of a pile of graphite and uranium bricks and wooden timbers, assembled in the precise arrangement necessary to start and stop a nuclear chain reaction. Cadmium rods inserted into the pile regulated the nuclear reaction to prevent it from “burning” itself out of control. Had it not been controlled, the experiment could have released a catastrophic amount of energy, wreaking havoc in the middle of the densely populated city of Chicago.
“We’re cooking!” was the exuberant reaction recorded when the experiment succeeded. (The data shown on these notebook pages is the record of the nuclear reactor’s response to the movement of the control rods.)
(Information excerpted from Stacey Bredhoff, American Originals [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001], pp. 94–95.)
Event: New Mexico Role in WW II (1941-45)
Executive Order 9066 – Japanese Internment
Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by the United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones, clearing the way for the deportation of Japanese Americans, Italian Americans, and German Americans to internment camps. The executive order was spurred by a combination of war hysteria and reactions to Pearl Harbor and the Niihau Incident.
Fuller Lodge – Los Alamos, NM
This is a photograph of the Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos, NM. The Fuller Lodge was used by the military staff and J. Oppenheimer during the Manhattan Project. This photo was complied by the Historic American Buildings Survey after 1933. Part of the American Memory, Historic American Building Collections at the Library of Congress.
FDR’s Response to Einstein Letter
This is President Roosevelt’s response to Albert Einstein’s letter about atomic testing. This letter was done in 1939 by Edwin Watson, secretary to the President.
Albert Einstein Letter to FDR
This is a letter from Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt in 1939. This letter helped to start the Manhattan Project.
Letter, FDR to Oppenheimer
In the midst of World War II, while engaged abroad in a major conflict with Germany and Japan, the United States was also working furiously at home toward the completion of the Manhattan Project. This huge research and development project was begun in June 1942 to develop a superexplosive weapon based on the nuclear fission process. It was hoped that such a superweapon would end the war. Two years before such an experimental atomic bomb was detonated successfully near Alamogordo, New Mexico, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) wrote to J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), the scientist in charge of its development
July 16, 1945 – First Atomic Bomb Detonation
This 1968 document is the explanation of the first atomic detonation at the Trinity Site, White Sands, NM. It gives details of the detonation.
LOC: HAER NM,27-ALMOG.V,1A- (sheet 4 of 11)
Trinity Site – Map
This is a map of the Manhattan Project sites. The document highlights the detonation site at White Sands, NM and the atomic testing. HAER (Historic American Engineering Record) complied this information after 1968.
LOC: HAER NM,27-ALMOG.V,1A- (sheet 1 of 11)
Trinity Site – Survey Photo
Photo of Trinity Site, location of the first atomic detonation. This photo was taken by a survey team years later. One can see the ranch house and barn. HAER (Historic American Engineering Record) photographers took this photo in April, 1984.
Trinity Site – Camera Bunker
Photograph of the interior of one of the camera bunkers at the Trinity Site, White Sands Missile Range. Photo was taken in April of 1984, years after detonation.