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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

More About Our Profiles

One of the goals of this site and the Atomic Heritage Foundation is to help people find out more about the men and women who worked on the Manhattan Project. Historian Alex Wellerstein explains that around half a million people worked on the Manhattan Project, or 0.4% of all Americans — about one out of every 250 people in the country at the time. It was an enormous undertaking.

We receive many inquiries from people who want to find out whether their relative or friend worked on the Manhattan Project and what they worked on. Unfortunately, there is no single document listing everyone who worked on the project. There are archives around the country that can help, however – and so can this site.

Use this profile section to search for and learn more about many Manhattan Project veterans. We have compiled this database using several lists, including the Manhattan Project Heritage and Preservation Association’s veterans’ database and several lists provided by Alan Carr, historian of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Our database is a work in progress. We eventually hope to have the names of 10,000 Manhattan Project veterans. We have biographies for some of these veterans; for others, we only have names. While 10,000 is only a fraction of the number of people who worked on the project, this database represents the most comprehensive list of Manhattan Project veterans online.

Please note that the database also includes profiles of some non-Manhattan Project veterans, such as early nuclear pioneers, German scientists who worked on Nazi Germany’s efforts to get the bomb, and American scientists and engineers who were involved in nuclear testing after World War II. You can use the filters to search for Manhattan Project veterans, women scientists, engineers, spouses of Manhattan Project workers, and more.

If you would like to learn more about a Manhattan Project veteran, there are a few archives around the country that may help.

  1. If your relative was in the military, check with the National Archives here.
  2. If they were civilian, try to find out which company he or she worked for and see if you can locate their records directly through that organization. For example, if they worked for DuPont, get in touch with the Hagley Library in Wilmington, DE, which houses the DuPont Corp. archives.
  3. If they were employed by the federal government, get in touch with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO, which houses the records of federal employees. Unfortunately, in 1973 a major fire destroyed millions of records of Army and Air Force personnel held at the center.
  4. The National Archives at Atlanta has a wealth of information on the Manhattan Project.
  5. If your relative’s health was negatively impacted by his or her work at a nuclear-weapons complex, please contact the excellent organization Cold War Patriots, dedicated to to helping nuclear complex workers and their families understand the benefits available to them and how to gain access to needed health care and program services. Cold War Patriots can help guide you through the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) and the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).

If you would like us to add a profile or more information about a Manhattan Project veteran, please contact us.