Y-12 Beta Chemistry Building 9206
Introduction - Part One
The 1940s offered unprecedented possibilities for young women looking for work. Colorful eye-catching posters like the ones shown below were used extensively to recruit women of all ages to seek job opportunities that would both benefit them and serve the war effort.
1942 recruiting poster for the U. S. Cadet Nurse Corps.
Source: National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, ID and Catalog No. 1977.0020.041.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1173667
1943 recruiting poster issued by the U. S. Office of War Information.
"I've found the job where I fit best!" find your war job in industry, agriculture, business/ / George R. United States, 1943. Washington, D.C.: Office of War Information. Photograph.
1944 recruiting poster for the United States Armed Forces.
Source: National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, ID No. AF.59413-M, Catalog No. 59413-M.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_443958
From the beginning, recruiters for the Manhattan Project were faced with a dilemma. How to recruit workers for a project so secret that neither its general purpose, nor details about the job positions available could be revealed?
Posters like the ones above were out of the question. Inconspicuous classified ads for the trades like the ones shown below were typical:
WANTED
50 PAINTERS
for
Clinton Engineer Works.
Apply
311 MORGAN ST.
Phone 4-3966
Or U. S. E. S. - 520 Union.
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The Knoxville News-Sentinel, 02 Apr 1944, Sun · Page 12.
SOURCE: Newspapers.com
SHEET METAL WORKERS WANTED.
Ventilation work at the
CLINTON ENGINEER WORKS.
ESSENTIAL WAR WORK.
Work week, 66 hours; time and one-half
in excess of 40 hours.
Apply by wire to
KIRBY SAUNDERS, INC.
care Clinton Engineer Works,
P. O. Box 1711,
Knoxville, Tenn.,
Or phone
Mr. J. B. Anderson, Jr.
Andrew Johnson Hotel,
Knoxville, Tenn.
USES referral card necessary.
​
The Cincinnati Enquirer, 27 Aug 1944, Sun · Page 42..
SOURCE: Newspapers.com
​
CONSTRUCTION ELECTRICIANS
FOR WORK NEAR,
KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE.
58-hour work week.
Earnings $100.50 Per Week.
Living facilities on the job site.
See Representative daily
CLINTON ENGINEER WORKS
44 EAST 23d. ST. NEW YORK CITY
​
Daily News (New York), 26 Jun 1944, Mon · Page 259.
SOURCE: Newspapers.com
​
Recruiting for work assignments unique to the Manhattan Project, such as Calutron operators, or chemical operators, was trickier. Because of security concerns, such jobs could not be described in detail, neither in the copy for written ads, nor during oral interviews with recruiters.
Copy writers faced with this dilemma came up with this solution for an ad that appeared in the Atlanta Constitution newspaper on three consecutive days* in the spring of 1944:
IN DAYS to come, we venture to say, when your children ask, “What did YOU do during the war?” women who have done so will point with pride to service with Clinton Engineer Works, Tennessee Eastman Corporation in Tennessee.
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SERVING this project is an experience to be remembered a lifetime.
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REPRESENTATIVES of Tennessee Eastman will be at the U. S. Employment Service office in Atlanta tomorrow through Friday to tell the women of Georgia how they may support the war by serving the project.
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GIRLS with a high school education, experience, girls who are bright and alert, college-trained women – any such ambitious woman glad to fight for her country by doing clean work in a clean war plant is sought NOW. The pay is excellent, food adequate, housing good, surroundings interesting.
​
THE Marines have their Belleau Wood and their Guadalcanal and the men and women soldiers of industry will have their Clinton Engineer Works.​
*Sunday, April 30, 1944, Page 40; Monday, May 1, 1944, Page 16; and Tuesday, May 2, 1944, Page 16. (Source: Newspapers.com)
When I first read the ad, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I couldn't help but wonder if the copy writer had ever set foot in the Clinton Engineer Works/Tennessee Eastman Corporation (hereinafter "CEW/TEC") project area, much less worked there, eaten there, slept there, or glanced around at the surroundings. The ad copy appeals to the reader's sense of patriotism, which in the early 1940's was abundant. It even goes so far as to compare CEW workers to soldiers. The opening sentence echoes a line from General George S. Patton's well publicized speeches to the Third Army which he gave frequently beginning in February, 1944:
"There is one great thing you men will all be able to say when you go home. You may thank God for it. Thank God, that at least, thirty years from now, when you are sitting around the fireside with your grandson on your knees, and he asks you what you did in the great war, you won't have to cough and say, 'I shoveled shit in Louisiana.'"
- George S. Patton's Speech to the Third U.S. Army, http://www.knox.army.mil/museum/pattonsp.htm
Due to the extreme secrecy and security touching every aspect of the Manhattan Project in general, and in this case, the CEW project in particular, the ad mentions nothing whatsoever about either the nature of the project, nor the specific job assignments available. Besides the general appeal to patriotism, the ad makes seven specific promises to any woman who accepting employment with CEW:
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clean work,
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in a clean war plant,
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for excellent pay,
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adequate food,
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good housing,
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interesting surroundings, and
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pride of service to the war effort.
​
I will discuss my take on the promises made in this ad later. Suffice it to say for now, that ads like this one**, along with the similar canned pitches of personnel recruiters, were successful in persuading thousands of women and men to sign on with CEW/TEC, and my parents were two of the many thousands who did just that.
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NOTES:
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** A Newpapers.com search of the phrase "Clinton Engineer Works" for the year 1944 results in 1,110 hits. Not surprisingly, Tennessee, has the lion's share with 818 hits, followed by New York with 76 hits, Virginia with 27 hits, North Carolina and Ohio with 20 hits each, Missouri with 15 hits, Kentucky and Pennsylvania with 14 hits each, Alabama with 10 hits, Indiana and Texas with 9 hits each, Florida with 8 hits, Georgia with 7 hits, Louisiana, South Carolina and Washington with 6 hits each, Wisconsin with 5 hits, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, Utah, and Vermont with 3 hits each, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Oregon with 2 hits each, and California, Connecticut, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota with 1 hit each.
