LIFE AT THE MET LAB

• Making of the Met Lab
• CP-1 (Chicago Pile #1)
• CP-2 and CP-3
• Life at the Met Lab
• Argonne National Laboratory

The University of Chicago had been the site of important atomic research even before the beginning of the Manhattan Project. Arthur H. Compton's selection in January 1942 of the Chicago campus as the site for the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab), the first facility specifically dedicated to building the atomic bomb, nonetheless made the University of Chicago perhaps the most important academic institution of the Manhattan Project.

Life for the Manhattan Project scientists and staffers assigned to work at the Met Lab on the Chicago campus was a good deal easier than it was for their colleagues who were "roughing it" on the mesa at Los Alamos or at the production sites of Oak Ridge or Hanford. Aside from the classified nature of the work, life at the Met Lab was fundamentally not that different from what it had been for most researchers at their home universities. Scientists and engineers were organized by discipline in a manner similar to department divisions. Compton also substituted advisory committees and group leaders for the familiar academic role of the department chair or laboratory advisor. Met Lab scientists for the most part did not engage in academic activities such as teaching, but administrative, clerical, and other workers performed duties and lived lives largely indistinguishable from their campus counterparts. Chicago was a modern and pleasant campus and the Met Lab had the firm support of the university's administration—life was not all that bad at the University of Chicago, especially when Met Lab scientists and staffers had access to all the amenities of a world-class city.

This is not to say that their work was not difficult or did not demand at times extraordinary commitment. The Met Lab was in a constant state of flux in terms of the work and organizational structure. Compton saw assignments to laboratory groups to be on a temporary, as-needed basis. As the project changed, then, so did the organization of groups of scientists. Furthermore, when it came to completing critical "rush projects" such as CP-1, the men and women of the Met Lab proved just as capable as those of Hanford, Los Alamos, or Oak Ridge, of working around the clock. After the establishment of those other facilities, too, the people who remained at the Met Lab were forced to accept that the most high-profile work of the Manhattan Project had passed them by.

Morale, as a result, became a serious issue at the Met Lab. Emphasis shifted in 1943 from pile research to plutonium production, and the Met Lab played an increasingly secondary role to the DuPont company, which General Leslie Groves had chosen to build and operate the Hanford production reactors. As the production reactors neared completion in fall 1944 and operations started up, Hanford needed very little additional support from the Met Lab. Restless scientists at the lab contended that the national interest demanded a continuing research effort, but Groves did not have authority to spend money on distant objectives, however worthy. In February 1945, he announced that he was restricting the Met Lab and the now separate Argonne Laboratory to supporting operations at Hanford, helping Los Alamos, and conducting limited research. The entire Met Lab faced heavy personnel cutbacks, with the laboratory on the Chicago campus due for the greatest loss. Aside from health personnel, all Met Lab divisions and the Argonne Laboratory by March 1945 had lost twenty percent or more of their employees.

Health and safety issues were major work-place concerns. Although radiation hazards from x rays and radium were well known, information on uranium and plutonium was lacking. Concern about radiation exposure arose immediately at the new lab, and the scientists themselves proved to be the most ardent proponents for health protection. At a major chemistry conference in April 1942, project scientists addressed issues of waste disposal, contamination of air and ground water, and radiation exposure and protection of workers from radiation effects. In July, Compton established the Chicago Health Division, whose primary task was to institute a health physics program to monitor radiation hazards.

Security also was a constant concern. In a certain sense, security was more complicated at the Met Lab than at more remotely located sites, with scientists and staffers continually moving in and out of classified and non-classified environments on the Chicago campus. The issues, nonetheless, remained the same. Met Lab employees could not discuss their work with their University of Chicago colleagues, a task made easier by the "metallurgical laboratory" cover and the awareness of the need for wartime security. Nor could employees discuss their work with their friends and families. Spouses were kept in the dark, except for Compton who, as "one of those who must talk over important problems with his wife," arranged to get Betty Compton a security clearance.

Life at the Argonne site, which became operational in early 1943, was, at least at first, not all that different. The intensity of the work remained the same, even if the setting was more bucolic. Located some twenty-five miles southwest of Chicago, the site was "sufficiently isolated and yet within easy commuting distance of the University campus." Not until late 1943, when construction began on CP-3, the heavy water pile, were "service buildings" erected that included a dormitory and mess hall for residential living.

• Making of the Met Lab
• CP-1 (Chicago Pile #1)
• CP-2 and CP-3
• Life at the Met Lab
• Argonne National Laboratory

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