Philip S. Anderson was a major in the US Army and worked at Oak Ridge, TN during the Manhattan Project. He graduated from the University of Arkansas, where he joined the Army ROTC. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Anderson worked for the Arkansas Agricultural Extension Service. After the United States entered into World War II, he was called up immediately and was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers.
Before moving to Oak Ridge, TN, Anderson and his family moved to Omaha, NE. There, the Office of the Division Engineer in Omaha designated Anderson as a “contracting officer with limited authority to execute the lease of property for military purposes consummated by the Missouri River Division office.”[1] Later, he and his family moved into a hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee, because the construction at Oak Ridge was not completed yet. Anderson’s son, Philip S. Anderson, Jr., recounted in an interview with AHF that his father was in charge of housing at Oak Ridge and that was “ probably why [they] moved into the first house that was completed, because it was his call.” The house they moved into was an “A” house, a small, two-bedroom house, on New York Avenue.
During the the war, Anderson was promoted from captain to major. After the war, Anderson and his family bought a farm in Poinsett County, Arkansas.
[1] “Designation as Contracting Officer,” (Orders, War Department Office of the Division Engineer–Missouri River Division, Omaha, 1942).