History - Main - Women of the Manhattan Project

Web Master's Note: As might be expected, women played a very important role in varying aspects of the Manhattan Project. However, because both the military and upper echelons of the scientific community were male dominated, the role of women was often overshadowed. Women participated in both a civilian and a military capacity. From a military standpoint, the Women's Army Corps (WAC's) provided much of the administrative and clerical manpower and generally "filled-in" wherever they were needed. Civilian women worked as nurses, physicists, engineers, machine operators, maids, runners, drivers, chemists, typists, filers, doctors, inspectors, researchers, teachers, veterinarians, cryptographers, draftswomen, pipe-fitters, glass blowers, secretaries, and gauge watchers. In most instances they were over-worked and under-paid compared to their male counterparts. (There were a few exceptions; my mother, a nurse-supervisor at Los Alamos made 3 times what my father was paid as a T/3 with the Military Police) Although most of the women were white, there were Hispanic, Native-Americans and a few African-American women involved, albeit they were involved only in the most menial of jobs.


Leona Woods (Marshall) - Physicist - Met Lab and Hanford	Capt. Arlene Scheidenhein; Commanding Officer - WAC Detachment	Chien Shiung Wu - Physicist - UC Berkeley and Los Alamos

	Women Pioneers in Nuclear Science
	Manhattan District Women's Army Corps Detachment
	Women Veterans of the Manhattan Engineer District

	"Their Day in the Sun...Women of the Manhattan Project"