The Manhattan Project

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The world was shocked when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. The bombs were a result of years of research and testing completed by the nation’s top physicists in a top-secret project called the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was a crucial development by the United States because it quickly ended the war with Japan.
In August 1939, Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard drafted the Einstein-Szilard letter to send to President Roosevelt. The letter outlined the need for the United States to stockpile uranium ore and start the development of an atomic bomb. The letter also warned Roosevelt that Nazi scientists were developing a similar program. President Roosevelt created a project to study uranium and nuclear chain reactions, with a budget of $167,000. After the physicists completed a controlled nuclear chain reaction, they presented their findings to the president and other top officials. President Roosevelt approved the Manhattan Project on October 9, 1941.
The fully-funded project’s initial research started out at Columbia University, University of Chicago, and the University of California Berkeley (Manhattan Project ushistory.org). In 1942, dedicated facilities were built in Los Alamos, New Mexico. At any given time, there were about 120,000 people working on the project. A majority of the workers had do idea what the purpose of their job was. Even skilled physicists and scientists knew what they had to accomplish, but did not understand the scope of the project. Very few people knew what the final product was going to be. Even Vice President Truman did not know that the Manhattan Project existed.
Despite all of the secrecy, word of the project still reached the Soviet Union. After t...

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...d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .This source is an interview with someone who worked on the Manhattan Project. It helped my paper because he describes the immense secrecy around the project, and that he didn't even know how his job related to the project.
"The Manhattan Project." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. .This source provides an overview of the project in its entirety. It also talks about why the project was created, which is an important part of my essay.
"Rationing on the US Homefront during WW II." Rationing on the US Homefront during WW II. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. .This source talked about the effects of rationing on the people of the United States

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