Smithsonian Institution Archives

The Manhattan Project Videohistory Collection, 1987-1990

Summary

Collection ID:
SIA.FARU9531
Creators:
Manhattan Project (U.S.)
Dates:
1987-1990
Languages:
English
Physical Description:
29 videotapes (Reference copies). 75 digital .wmv files and .rm files (Reference copies).
Repository:
Smithsonian Institution Archives

Introduction

Introduction
The Smithsonian Videohistory Program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986 until 1992, used video in historical research. Additional collections have been added since the grant project ended. Videohistory uses the video camera as a historical research tool to record moving visual information. Video works best in historical research when recording people at work in environments, explaining artifacts, demonstrating process, or in group discussion. The experimental program recorded projects that reflected the Institution's concern with the conduct of contemporary science and technology.
Smithsonian historians participated in the program to document visual aspects of their on-going historical research. Projects covered topics in the physical and biological sciences as well as in technological design and manufacture. To capture site, process, and interaction most effectively, projects were taped in offices, factories, quarries, laboratories, observatories, and museums. Resulting footage was duplicated, transcribed, and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution Archives for scholarship, education, and exhibition. The collection is open to qualified researchers.

Descriptive Entry

Descriptive Entry
Stanley Goldberg, consulting historian for the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH), recorded eighteen video sessions with fifty-five participants involved in the engineering, physics, and culmination of the Manhattan Project. Goldberg examined the research and technologies necessary to realize the uranium and plutonium bombs. He supplemented interviews with visual documentation of the industrial plants that refined and separated the isotopes, and of the machinery that delivered and dropped the bombs. Interviewees explained the other steps of designing, building, testing and detonating an atomic bomb. Discussions with participants also elicited a social history of the Project as recalled by various men and women responsible for different duties in different locales. Between January 1987 and June 1990 the sessions were recorded on-site or in-studio in Hanford, Washington; Boston, Massachusetts; Oak Ridge and Louisville, Tennessee; Alamogordo and Los Alamos, New Mexico; Washington, D.C.; and Suitland, Maryland. The sessions are divided into five series: Hanford, Oak Ridge, Cambridge, Los Alamos, and Alberta.
This collection consists of eighteen interview sessions, separated into five series, totaling approximately 47:00 hours of recordings, and 1188 pages of transcript.
Please note that Sessions 14 and 15 in Series Four are comprised of dual sets of tape from two cameras positioned at different angles.

Historical Note

Historical Note
The United States government began underwriting investigations of the feasibility of atomic weapons in October 1941. Within a year, promising research at several universities, particularly at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, showed that it was possible to produce atomic bombs based on the chain-reacting fission of uranium 235 isotope or of plutonium. This led to the reorganization of the Manhattan District, or "Project," of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make these bombs a reality. Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves directed and coordinated the Project from 1942 to 1945, spending 2.3 billion dollars on nuclear reactors and chemical separation plants at Hanford, Washington, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and on the weapon research and design laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The first plutonium bomb was successfully detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The B-29 bomber Enola Gay exploded the first uranium bomb, "Little Boy," over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945; the B-29 Bock's Car exploded the second plutonium bomb, "Fat Man," over Nagasaki, Japan, two days later.

Administration

Author
Finding aid prepared by Smithsonian Institution Archives

Using the Collection

Prefered Citation
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 9531, The Manhattan Project Videohistory Collection

More Information

Notes

Oral Histories


Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
Goldberg, Stanley, interviewer Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Albaugh, Frederic W., 1913-1999 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bainbridge, Kenneth T. (Kenneth Tompkins), 1904-1996 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hornig, Donald F., 1920-2013 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Morrison, Philip Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Wilson, Robert R., 1914-2000 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Serber, R. (Robert) Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
French, A. P. (Anthony Philip), 1920- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Frisch, David H., 1918-1991 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hornig, Lilli S. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Frisch, Rose E. (Rose Epstein) Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smith, Alice Kimball Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Wilson, Jane S. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Smith, Cyril Stanley, 1903-1992 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Reines, Frederick, 1918-1998 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bethe, Hans A. (Hans Albrecht), 1906-2005 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Mark, Carson Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Christy, Robert F., 1916-2012 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Foster, Richard F. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Greager, Oswald H. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Matthias, Franklin T. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Denton, Lawrence Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bacher, Robert F. (Robert Fox), 1905-2004 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bradbury, Norris, 1909-1997 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hawkins, David, 1913-2002 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ramsey, Norman, 1915-2011 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Agnew, Harold M. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ashworth, Frederick L., 1912-2005 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Sweeney, Charles W. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Cease, Wilson A. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Wahlen, Ralph K. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Wright, Wakefield A., 1915-2007 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Chapman, Vivian Russell Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
McCue, William P. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Perkins, Leonard F., Sr. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Babcock, Dale F. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Creutz, Edward C., 1913-2009 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Weinberg, Alvin Martin, 1915-2006 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Wigner, Eugene Paul, 1902-1995 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Borst, Lyle B., 1912- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Black, Colleen, 1925-2015 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Bolling, Connie Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Larson, Jane W. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Livingston, Audrey B. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Banic, George M., Jr. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Larson, Clarence E. (Clarence Edward), 1909- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Livingston, Robert S. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Googin, John M., 1922-1994 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Keim, Chris P. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Vanstrum, Paul R.. 1920-2010 Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Parsons, James A. Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Huber, Paul Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Feld, Bernard Taub, 1919- Personal Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Enola Gay (Bomber) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Clinton Engineer Works (Oak Ridge, Tenn.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Tinian Island Airbase Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Manhattan Project (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Project Alberta Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Air and Space Museum (U.S.) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
National Air and Space Museum (U.S.). Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Fat Man (Bomb) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Little Boy (Bomb) Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hanford Engineer Works Corporate Name Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
World War, 1939-1945 Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Atomic bomb Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Women -- History Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Science -- History Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Technology -- History Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Military history Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Physics Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Oral history Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Interviews Topic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Trinity Test Site (N.M.) Place Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Hiroshima-shi (Japan) -- History -- Bombardment, 1945 Place Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Nagasaki (Japan) Place Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Nagasaki-shi (Japan) -- History -- Bombardment, 1945 Place Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Videotapes Genre/Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Transcripts Genre/Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

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