crecy once recruits arrived in Oak ers, they were barred from bring- Though Kiernan found many Ridge. Each was given just the ing their children to Oak Ridge). letters of complaint addressed to sliver of information necessary to There was one camp for black men everyone from construction boss- do her job. The word uranium was and another for black women, es to President Roosevelt, many never spoken or written. Instead, it separated by a high fence, barbed black workers stayed on. The sim- was referred to as “tubealloy” and wire, and guards. They had a 10 ple truth was that African-Ameri- “product”—not that anyone but, pm curfew and little privacy, with cans’ experience in Oak Ridge was say, the chemists even knew what four people squeezed into a one- not so different from elsewhere uranium was or how its power room hut heated by a coal stove. in the South and beyond, but the might be harnessed for this newly Cooking in the huts was forbid- wages could not be matched.

PRINT discovered thing called fission. den. Instead, there was a special On the morning of August 6, IN Lest anyone start blabbing about blacks-only cafeteria, renowned 1945, the United States dropped work, residents were bombarded for serving up mystery meat and a bomb armed with uranium pro- with warnings. There were bill- “rocks, glass, or some danger- cessed at Oak Ridge on Hiroshi- boards, editorials, missives, and the ous piece of harmful trash.” After ma, and another three days later on occasional, sudden disappearance a particularly harrowing bout of Nagasaki. Just like that, the world of a loose-lipped colleague, and food poisoning, Strickland started ventured into a new age, the war these reminders mostly worked. to surreptitiously bake corn bread, ended, and a veil was lifted on the “Nobody wanted to be respon- biscuits, and other comfort foods true purpose of The Project. It sible for derailing the war effort,” in the huts on rumpled pans fash- would take some time to under- Kiernan explains. “If they said, ioned from scrap metal. stand the full scale of destruction in ‘Keep your mouth shut or you’re Life turned truly horrific for Japan. nonfiction going to screw things up,’ then it some African-Americans, such as In Oak Ridge, there was ju- was like, ‘Well, I’ll keep my mouth Ebb Cade, a healthy 53-year-old bilation. Everyone could return shut.’ ” construction worker. When both to faraway homes and know that By 1945, Oak Ridge was home of his legs were broken in a car ac- their brothers, husbands, and sons to 75,000 workers and their fam- cident, doctors at Oak Ridge were would soon join them. But a sur- Coming of Atomic Age ilies. The days were long, and the ordered not to set them imme- prising number also settled in right work never stopped for holidays. diately and to give him injections there, taking new jobs in the bur- Housing was scarce and shoddy. of plutonium to study its effect. geoning field of atomic energy. THE YOUNG WOMEN WHO (UNWITTINGLY) Single women were generally as- Thereafter he was known as HP- Today, the town has only 28,000 BUILT THE A-BOMB signed to dormitories, while fam- 12. Staff collected urine, feces, and residents but is home to the De- ilies scrunched into prefab hous- tissue samples, and removed 15 partment of Energy’s largest na- Inside a uranium-enrichment es and trailers. There were lines by Nicole Pezold / GSAS ’04 plant, young women were tr ained to operate these calutron for everything—food, cigarettes, monitors without ever knowing books. The mud was ubiquitous he only thing Celia night in the mountains of eastern in one of the processing plants, P hoto their purpose. and calf-deep. Despite the dis- Szapka knew as her Tennessee as part of the Manhattan and Leona Woods, a physicist who S © J comforts, these years marked a train rattled along in Project. Its singular purpose was to helped to create the first sustained a mes thor was approached by Holly- formative period for many of the

the August heat of enrich as much uranium as quick- nuclear reaction. “The most ambi- E dw wood when the book was merely young workers. It was the first 1943 was that they ly as possible for use in the War tious war project in military history a rd in proposal form, and continues to time they were on their own, W est Twere headed south. Szapka, a Department’s quest to develop a rested squarely on the shoulders of ride a wave of lectures, interviews, pockets flush with cash, and a c 24-year-old secretary working for nuclear bomb. tens of thousands of ordinary peo- ott, and book events, from Raleigh to lively social scene sprouted in- c the State Department in New York It was an arduous task, and as ple, many of them young wom- o u rtes Milwaukee—including a party in stantly. There were dances, reli-

City, had been picked up by limo, chronicled in journalist Denise Ki- en,” she writes. y o f the N a Nashville thrown by one of her gious services, a movie theater, taken to Newark Penn Station, and ernan’s book, The Girls of Atomic Kiernan resurrects this moment subjects, Colleen Rowan, where and all manner of clubs, from bas-

led aboard a berth with several oth- City: The Untold Story of the Wom- in history through hundreds of tio nal Ar all the ladies dressed in 1940s ketball to Girl Scouts. er young women all hired for “The en Who Helped Win World War II interviews with former workers, military garb and passed around You only had to be white to Billboards were a ubiquitous reminder to keep mum about the work happening at Oak Ridge.

Project.” She had not been told (Touchstone), much of this labor many now in their nineties, and c hives atomic-themed cocktails. partake in the fun. African-Amer- where the job was, whom she’d be fell to women like Szapka. Kier- extensive archival research. Since The Project sought out young icans, who were primarily hired to of his teeth. He died eight years tional laboratory and celebrates its working for, what she’d be doing, nan (WSUC ’91, STEINHARDT its release last spring, the book has women like Rowan and Jones, build or clean the town and plants, later, reportedly from heart fail- unusual origins each June with the or how long it would last—only ’02) presents her story, as a secre- landed on The New York Times from rural Tennessee and fresh faced all the indignities of segre- ure. In 1994, President Bill Clin- Secret City Festival. “[Oak Ridge] that it paid well and was in service tary at the town’s administrative best-seller list and has won the at- out of high school, because it was gation and more. When Kattie ton appointed a special committee may have been constructed by the to ending the war. headquarters, along with the narra- tention of critics. The Washington thought that they were easier to Strickland and her husband arrived to investigate this and thousands government,” Kiernan says, “but What waited at the end of this tives of women at all levels of this Post called it “fascinating,” noting instruct and asked fewer questions. from Alabama, they discovered of other human radiation experi- they had built that community by journey was Oak Ridge, a top- undertaking—including Dorothy that “Rosie, it turns out, did much These were important traits be- that they were not allowed to live ments that were conducted from staying there, eating there, marry- secret town raised almost over- Jones, a calutron cubicle operator more than drive rivets.” The au- cause there was no end to the se- together (and unlike white work- 1944 to 1974. ing there, having babies there.”

NYU / FALL 2013 / 27 nonfiction bibliofile

AMONG MURDERERS: Journalist Sabine Heinlein inter- JUNGLELAND: A MYSTERIOUS One steamy day in July 2009, LIFE AFTER PRISON viewed more than 50 prisoners LOST CITY, A WWII SPY, AND Christopher Stewart left the com-

IPRI N T N (UNIVERSITY OF before she found Angel, Bruce, and A TRUE STORY OF DEADLY fort of Brooklyn and embarked on Writing to the Beat CALIFORNIA PRESS) Adam—all convicted of murder— ADVENTURE a real-life Indiana Jones adven- SABINE HEINLEIN who are the protagonists in this (HARPER) ture to find the Ciudad Blanca, or Devon Powers recalls the dawn of rock criticism GSAS ’07 sobering, sensitive debut about CHRISTOPHER S. STEWART White City. A journalist at The Wall reentering society after serving GAL ’96 Street Journal, he had become by Kevin Fallon / CAS ’09 hard time. The author spent more obsessed with the mystical city— than two years documenting their believed to be hidden in the jungle return to a world they barely rec- of Honduras’s Mosquito Coast— ognized, where everyday chores while reporting on the Honduran hese days, a person “Goldstein has created his own they all partied with rock accomplish something in such as shopping, crossing the drug trade. Seventy years earli- can tweet a review of journalistic discipline—the ‘pop’ stars. Was it really like a field as purportedly street, riding the subway, or or- er, American explorer Theodore Justin Bieber’s new beat,” which allowed him to roam that? technical as journalism.” dering a meal could be daunting. Morde claimed to have located it, song and have his or the world of “miniskirts, under- I’d say yes and no. Yes, to the ex- That seems like déjà vu Heinlein’s in-depth reporting of- and Stewart’s narrative zigzags her 140-character ground filmmakers, LSD cultists, tent that rock musicians were a with blogs and micro music fers powerful insight into the reen- between this earlier account and Topinion taken (somewhat) seri- and rock ’n’ roll musicians.” Along lot more accessible then. I mean, sites doing rock criticism. try system, its shortcomings, and his own journey—replete with ven- ously. The reflex is so common the way, notes Powers (STEIN- Richard Goldstein has told me Is there a difference? good practices, and the book also omous snakes and pirates—until that it’s hard to remember it took a HARDT ’08), an assistant profes- stories about meeting Janis Joplin The concerns of the mid-1950s reveals these men’s struggles to- the lines between past and pres- revolution to get there. sor of culture and communication and Diana Ross and all these peo- are different. It is an era when ward freedom and redemption. As ent, legend and reality begin to Devon Powers’ book Writing at Drexel University, these writers ple. But music writers, they were people are obsessed with the word Jillian Steinhauer put it for the Los blur. The Daily Beast gushed: “The the Record: The Village Voice and the helped to legitimize the study of twentysomethings; they were conformity. It’s post–nuclear bomb. Angeles Review of Books, Hein- premise is so fantastic that if Jun- Birth of Rock Criticism (University popular culture itself. making really crappy money. It The oppressiveness that people of lein’s greatest “triumph” is “the gleland were a novel, you could be of Massachusetts Press) chronicles We spoke with Powers to dis- wasn’t wrapped in glamour and an alternative sensibility felt in the ability to turn ‘murderers’ […] into forgiven for worrying that it might the critical side of that revolution, cuss the birth of rock criticism, fashion. It was an amazing job, but ’50s is not the same as what people people.” be a bit pulpy or clichéd.” revisiting the work of a talented, pop culture in the digital age, and you were still living in a crappy felt at the rise of blogs and social —Boryana Dzhambazova —B.D. tenacious group of Village Voice whether the notion that “every- apartment and wondering what networking. You might be tak- journalists in the 1960s and ’70s. one is a critic” is actually true. you were doing with your life. ing down an establishment, but These early rock critics, including it’s not The Establishment, capital Richard Goldstein and Robert When a person thinks Village Voice founder Dan “T,” capital “E.” THE MAN WHO SEDUCED Greg Bautzer, the most ambitious TURNAROUND: THIRD WORLD In his latest work, Peter Blair Christgau, had a simple idea: to about music critics in Wolf said that the paper HOLLYWOOD: THE LIFE AND celebrity lawyer you’ve probably LESSONS FOR FIRST WORLD Henry follows the rocky econom- write about a cultural movement, the 1960s, they have a “was conceived to demolish Then what’s the LOVES OF GREG BAUTZER, never heard of, waltzed his way GROWTH ic trajectories of developing na- you actually have to be a part of romanticized, Almost the notion that one needs difference between TINSELTOWN’S MOST into Hollywood and dominated (BASIC BOOKS) tions—Brazil, Mexico, Barbados, it. Newsweek declared in 1966, Famous–inspired idea that to be a professional to the nonprofessionals POWERFUL LAWYER its social scene, and the tabloids, PETER BLAIR HENRY Chile, and China among them—and he was talking about (CHICAGO REVIEW PRESS) for more than three decades. In DEAN, LEONARD N. STERN assesses how, with policy reform P hoto Co u rtes and this notion that B. JAMES GLADSTONE 1936, the recent USC law school SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, AND and fiscal discipline, they gradual- “everyone is a critic,” TSOA ’85 graduate invested $5,000 in a WILLIAM R. BERKLEY PROFESSOR ly sowed paths toward prosperity. which sort of dismisses posh wardrobe and, with his legal OF ECONOMICS & FINANCE Through historical research and y NYU Ar the nonprofessional? prowess and natural good looks, data analysis, Henry examines the

c hives Part of the reason that mainstream soon landed a leading role among various policies, both damaging journalism was not paying atten- the cast of Tinseltown power play- (import substitution and nation- tion to what was going on in the ers. Between his celebrity clients alization in Jamaica) and benefi- Village is that they didn’t know. and confidants—Howard Hughes cial (trade liberalization in China), By getting people who were lo- and William Randolph Hearst pursued by leaders of the former cal and in the thick of things, [the among them—and his serial love Third World. He argues that First Voice] could speak more knowl- affairs with the likes of Lana Turn- World nations now facing rising edgably about what was happen- er and Ginger Rogers, Bautzer led poverty and economic dysfunc- ing. The one sort of problem that I a life as climactic as a blockbuster. tion have much to learn from their have when people say, “everyone Through meticulous archival re- less developed peers. Washington is a critic” is that yeah, everyone’s search and interviews with long- Monthly notes that the book is a a critic, but not everyone pays at- lived members of Bautzer’s inner “welcome addition to global devel- tention. I’m going to value what circle, B. James Gladstone con- opment literature” in that it can be my friend who knows a lot about structs a tantalizing portrait of “understood by readers who hav- Hollywood’s golden era. en’t passed advanced classes in Gerde’s Folk City w as just one of the Village venues where early rock critics rubbed elbows with their film says more than Mom—not soon-to-be star subjects. that my mom isn’t great. —Morgan Ribera statistics and algebra.” —M.R.

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