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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Patriotism

Oral History
Sheila Rowan and Jo-Ellen Iacovino’s Interview
June 18, 2015
Interviewer 1: Why did your family come to Oak Ridge? When did that happen? Rowan: Well, we actually came to Oak Ridge in 1945. We left Nashville in early 1945. Because there was no housing available onsite in Oak Ridge, we had to stay in South Harriman, which is about twenty miles away. In the […]
Oral History Interviewee
Jo-Ellen Iacovino
After her brother was drafted, Jo-Ellen Iacovino and her family moved to Happy Valley, Tennessee to support the war effort. Although Iacovino and her sister, Sheila Rowan, were too young to participate in the construction of the K-25, gaseous diffusion plant, their older sister, Colleen Black, and their parents worked to support the Manhattan Project. When the […]
Oral History Interviewee
Sheila Rowan
After her brother was drafted, Sheila Rowan’s family moved to Happy Valley, Tennessee to support the war effort. Although Rowan and her sister, Jo-Ellen Iacovino, were too young to participate in the construction of the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant, their older sister, Colleen Black, and their parents worked to support the Manhattan Project. When the […]
Oral History
Robert Serber’s Interview (1994)
June 17, 2015
Robert Serber: Ernest [Lawrence] got overexcited about the Russian bomb. I imagine that [Edward] Teller called him and got him worked up. I warned him about Edward’s Super, that it wasn’t a practical idea at the moment. I told him if he wanted to really find out he should talk to [Hans] Bethe, but he […]
Oral History
Rex Edward Keller’s Interview
June 15, 2015
Alexandra Levy: All right. We are here on April 23, 2015 with Mr. Rex Edward Keller. So first, can you please say your name and spell it. Rex Keller: Oh, Rex Edward Keller, R-E-X E-D-W-A-R-D, Keller, K-E-L-L-E-R. Levy: Can you tell me where and when you were born? Keller: I was born in Saxton, Missouri, […]
Oral History
Ralph Gates’s Interview
Wendy Steinle: Good morning, Ralph. I’m Wendy Steinle, as you know, and I am really pleased to be your friend and to have the opportunity to interview you this morning. Just for the record, will you start by stating and spelling your name, and then tell us the date? Ralph Gates:  Well, thanks, Wendy. My […]
Oral History Interviewee
Ralph Gates
Ralph Gates is a chemical and electrical engineer who worked on the Manhattan Project as a part of the Special Engineer Detachment. His primary job was casting shape charges for the plutonium bombs.
Oral History
John Mench’s Interview
March 6, 2015
Mench: I am John Mench and sixty years ago I was a young man with a wife and a baby girl, a good job in industrial deferment, a brand new home and a mortgage. Inside of a week or two, I had in my hand a ticket to a camp, an Army camp, an industrial […]
Oral History
General Richard H. Groves’s Interview
February 18, 2015
Richard Groves: I’m Richard Hulbert Groves, G-R-O-V-E-S. Paul Williams: What memories do you have of family life, at least when you were at home? Groves: I came home from Princeton occasionally. But then I went to West Point and we didn’t get out of West Point for a year and a half. I came home […]
Oral History
James C. Hobbs’s Interview – Part 1
December 12, 2014
Stephane Groueff: Hello, recording January 19, 1965, Florida, Coral Gables. Mr. Hobbs, H-O-B-B-S. J.C. Hobbs: I was born in West Virginia, just west of Pittsburgh up in the panhandle. My father and mother were both educators and in 1893 I was five years old, we came to Florida. He was an educator and also an […]