During World War II, there was a secret project known as the “Manhattan Project” that built the two atomic bombs that were dropped over Japan to end the war. Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was one of the major development centers of that project. [Other centers were Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the Hanford Site in Washington State.] The Oak Ridge site was a uranium enrichment plant designed to separate uranium 235 from uranium 238 to use as fuel for the nuclear weapon known as “Little Boy.” They also developed the process for creating plutonium that was used as the full production method at another Manhattan Project site. Plutonium was the fuel for the nuclear weapon known as “Fat Man.” Oak Ridge was a small rural community of about 4,000 residents in 1942. By 1944 it had a population of 75,000 and was the fifth-largest city in Tennessee, but, due to the project’s secrecy, was not shown on any maps of the state at the time. People in the area often said that it seemed that the town “grew overnight.” Most of the population worked on the project either in the labs or production facilities or related public services. The building of the facilities as well as inventing the processes that would allow the facilities to separate the uranium had to be accomplished at the same time so the United States could develop the technology before the Germans and Japanese. This huge undertaking had to be done in complete secrecy. The government did not want anyone to know what the Manhattan Project’s goals were. The project’s final goal was a secret even to the vast majority of the workers. The atomic bombs made with the fuel and processes created at the facilities at Oak Ridge were used on Japan in August of 1945. “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, and “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Although the U. S. didn’t have any more atomic bombs prepared, the Japanese thought they had more. Due to the destruction caused by the two bombs, Japanese leaders decided to surrender rather than risk more bombs. On August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allies ending World War II. Most of the workers at Oak Ridge found out what they had made the same way the rest of the world did, in the newspaper the day after the first atomic bomb had been dropped. 1. Why was Oak Ridge called a Secret City?

2. Why did the U. S. President Franklin Roosevelt decide to develop an atomic bomb?

3. What was the code name for the project?

4. Why did U. S. leaders choose the Oak Ridge site?

5. How did the federal government get land for the project?

6. What was the local name for the project during World War II?
This is for Social Studies