The Girls of Atomic City

On March 24, 1945, a black construction worker named Ebb Cade has a car accident on his way into CEW. He survives but is hospitalized. From this point on, Ebb Cade becomes known as HP-12 and begins to receive injections of plutonium without his consent. The doctors plan to “collect biological samples—tissues, urine, feces—all of which [will] be tested for the presence of plutonium, to see how it [will] travel, how much of it [will] remain in the body, and what effective it might have on HP-12” (221). Cade’s broken bones are not set until 20 days after the crash so that it is easier for the doctors to perform tests and take bone samples. Claiming to have noticed tooth decay in the patient, the doctors also remove 25 of his teeth to be tested.

The summer of 1945 sees more workers joining the Project. Residents peak at 75,000 while employment peaks at 82,000, meaning that more than 100,000 people are on site every day. Women “make up a large of portion of the new arrivals,” often finding “both job opportunities and a lively social life” (212) on the Reservation. Virginia notices that she has “little in common with married women” and finds herself “gravitating more and more toward conversations with men at social gatherings” (212).