Alice Kimball Smith

Alice Kimball Smith (1907-2001) was an American historian, author and teacher, particularly known from her writing from personal experience on the Manhattan Project.[1][2][3]

Alice Kimball Smith
BornAlice Kimball Smith
1907
Oak Park, Illinois, United States
Died2001
OccupationAuthor, Historian
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipAmerican
Alma materMount Holyoke College
Yale University

Early life and education

Smith was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1907.[1] She first went to college at Mount Holyoke College[4] where she obtained her A.B in 1928.[1] Eight years later, she got her Ph.D from Yale University.[5]

War years

In 1943 her and her husband Cyril moved to Los Alamos when her husband joined the Manhattan Project.[1] She soon got a teaching job in Los Alamos where her and her husband became friends with J. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty.[1] She would use her experiences around Los Alamos as material in her future books.[6][7][8] Smith, in her study of American A-bomb scientists interviewed many Los Alamos scientists who gave blank answers about the nature of the weapon that they were creating.[9]

Post war years

Smith and her husband moved to Chicago after World War II ended.[1] Smith became the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists assistant editor where she worked for many years.[1] She was a lecturer at Roosevelt College and a dean, assistant dean and scholar at Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study.[1][10] Smith also briefly was a guest columnist in the New York Times in 1983.[11]

Books

Smith wrote books like A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists’ Movement in America, 1945-1947[12][13] and co edited (with Charles Weiner)[14] Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections[15] with the latter being a collection of letters from J.Robert Oppenheimer between 1922 and 1945.[1][16][17][18] Her book A Peril and a Hope: The Scientist' Movement in America, 1945-1947 was nominated for a National Book Award for Nonfiction in the Science, Philosophy and Religion category.[19] A Peril and a Hope was about the growing negative sentiment of scientists about creating the atomic bomb due to their concerns over the sociopolitical consequences of its usage.[20]

Personal life

Alice Kimball was married to British metallurgist Cyril Smith.[1] She died on February 6, 2001 at her home in Ellensburg, Washington.[10]

References
  1. "Alice Kimball Smith". Atomic Heritage. Atomic Heritage. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  2. Buck, Peter (1978). "Images of the Scientific 'Community': Commentary on Papers by Alice Kimball Smith and Dorothy Nelkin". Newsletter on Science, Technology, & Human Values. 3 (24): 45–47. doi:10.1177/016224397800300322. JSTOR 688705. S2CID 144558873.
  3. "Alice Kimball Smith's Interview". Voices of the Manhattan Project. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  4. "Alumnae meets in Concord". Newspapers.com. The Portsmouth Herald. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  5. "The Leonardo Da Vinci Medal". Technology and Culture. 8 (2): 310–313. 1967. JSTOR 3101992.
  6. "When-americas Scientists knew sin hiroshima 70 years anniversary". Politico. Politico. 2015-08-06. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  7. Monk, Ray (March 11, 2014). Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center. Anchor. p. 880. ISBN 978-0385722049.
  8. Boyer, Paul (September 30, 1994). By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture At the Dawn of the Atomic Age (1st ed.). The University of North Carolina Press. p. 464. ISBN 978-0807844809.
  9. Joravsky, David. "Beyond the laboratory: scientists as political activists in 1930s America". Highbeam (from Science). Science. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  10. "Smith, 94, former dean of the Radcliffe Institute". Harvard Gazette. Harvard (University) Gazette. Archived from the original on 19 July 2001. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  11. Smith, Alice Kimball (1983-02-06). "Limited Opportunities". New York Times. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  12. Wang, Jessica (1992). "Science, Security, and the Cold War: The Case of E. U. Condon". Isis. 83 (2): 238–269. doi:10.1086/356112. JSTOR 234506. S2CID 144208511.
  13. "Out of the lab into the lobby". Newspaper.com. The San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  14. "Oppenheimer the person is revealed in book". Newspapers.com. Albuquerque Journal. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  15. "Historian of science Charles Weiner dies at 80". MIT. MIT. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  16. Strout, Cushing (2006). "A Rare Gift for Complication". Reviews in American History. 34 (1): 86–92. doi:10.1353/rah.2006.0016. JSTOR 30031579. S2CID 144381204.
  17. Post, Robert C. (2010). "Back at the Start: History and Technology and Culture". Technology and Culture. 51 (4): 961–994. doi:10.1353/tech.2010.0078. JSTOR 40928034. S2CID 141901691.
  18. "This week's Radio highlights". San Francisco Examiner. San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  19. "National Book Awards – 1966". National Book Foundation. Retrieved November 20, 2018.
  20. "30 Jul 2000 pg 254". Newspapers.com. San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
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