black scientists and technicians of the manhattan project manhattan project: black scientists and...

Black Scientists and Technicians

Of the Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project: Black Scientists and Technicians, Wisdom Institute University Excerpted from

BlackPast.org

Masters of 235U Knox Massi

e

Wilkins


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Taylor

Delaney

ChavisQuarterman

OmohundroReed

Russell

THE SCIENTISTS AND TECHNICIANS

Scientists

William Jacob KnoxLawrence A. Knox

Samuel Proctor MassieModdie Daniel Taylor

J. Ernest Wilkins


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THE SCIENTISTS AND TECHNICIANS

Technicians

Sherman CarterHarold Delaney

Harold EvansRalph Garner-Chavis

Jasper Brown JeffriesLloyd Albert Quarterman

Robert Johnson OmohundroGeorge Warren ReedEdwin Robert RussellBenjamin Franklin Scott

Manhattan Project: Black Scientists and Technicians, Wisdom Institute University

Excerpted from BlackPast.org

Manhattan Project: Black Scientists and Technicians, Wisdom Institute University Excerpted from BlackPast.org

Dr. William Jacob Knox

Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts on January 5, 1904, William Knox earned his Master’s degree and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1929 and 1935 respectively.

He left in 1942 to become chair of the chemistry department at Talladega College. He joined a team of scientists at Columbia University who were devising a way to separate the two uranium isotopes using gaseous diffusion, a complex process that made use of uranium hexafluoride, an extremely corrosive material. Though he did not know it at the time, his work was essential to the development of the atom bomb.

Knox also holds the distinction of being the only Black supervisor on the project.

Samuel Proctor Massie

Born in 1919 in North Little Rock, Arkansas became a distinguished professor of chemistry. Massie said his desire to find a cure for his father's asthma spurred him to become a chemist.

As he neared the completion of his doctorate in chemistry at Iowa State University in 1942, Massie lost his draft deferment. When he was about to be drafted in his home state of Arkansas, his major professor at Iowa State, Henry Gilman, who was already working on the Manhattan Project, assigned Massie to his research team. Massie performed his research at Iowa State University from 1942 to 1946 where he helped in the development of uranium isotopes for the atomic bomb.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Massie to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland where he became the first African American professor at the institution.


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J. Ernest Wilkins

Jesse Ernest Wilkins, Jr. is often described as one of America’s most important contemporary mathematicians. At 13, he became the University of Chicago’s youngest student. Wilkins continued his studies there, earning bachelor, master, and doctorate degrees in mathematics. When he finished his Ph.D. at 19, he was hailed by the national press as a “Negro genius.” His father was assistant Secretary of Labor during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. After completing his Ph.D., Wilkins taught mathematics for one year at Tuskegee Institute (1943-1944) before being recruited as Physicist to work at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago where he contributed to the Manhattan Project. Wilkins worked there between 1944 and 1946. After which he obtained BME (‘57) MME (‘60) degrees in Mechanical Engineering.

His greatest contribution to scholarship was the development of mathematical models to explain gamma radiation and his subsequent work on developing a shielding against gamma radiation.


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Moddie Daniel Taylor

Taylor was born in Nymph, Alabama on March 3, 1912, the son of Herbert L. Taylor and Celeste (Oliver) Taylor. The Taylors later moved to St. Louis where Herbert worked as a postal clerk. Moddie Taylor attended Charles H. Sumner High, graduating in 1931. Taylor graduated in 1935 as the valedictorian of his class and received an M.S. from Lincoln University in 1939 and a Ph.D. in 1943. His worked as an associate chemist for the project for the next two years, involved in analyzing rare earth metals, elements of which are the products of oxidized metals and have special properties.

His contributions to the project earned him a Certificate of Merit from Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson in 1946. In 1960, Taylor's textbook, First Principles of Chemistry, was published. It soon became one of the major texts in use in colleges and universities throughout the United States.


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Harold Delaney

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 24, 1919, Harold Delaney was one of several African American scientists to work on the Manhattan Project in World War II. After completing his M.A. degree, Delaney worked as a chemist on the Manhattan Project between 1943 and 1945 at the University of Chicago.

He later returned to Howard University to complete his doctoral degree and became one of the first two graduate students to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1958 from Howard.

Delaney held several academic and industrial positions over his career, working as a research chemist at E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co for three years (1966-1969), in 1974 Delaney became the first male president of Manhattanville College, a woman’s college in Purchase, New York.

He later served as vice president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities headquartered in Washington, D.C. He retired from that post in 1987.


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Lloyd Albert Quarterman

Born May 31, 1918 in Philadelphia, Lloyd Albert Quarterman, a chemist, was one of the few African American scientists and technicians to work on the Manhattan Project. After receiving his bachelor's degree from St. Augustine’s in 1943, he was quickly recruited by the War Department to work on the Manhattan Project. Quarterman was a member of the team of scientists who isolated the isotope of uranium (U 238) necessary for the fission process, which was essential to the creation of the atom bomb

In 1967 he developed a corrosive resistant "window" made of diamonds in order to better study hydrogen fluoride. His innovation was called the "diamond window."

He also created a xenon compound which surprised the world of chemistry because it was believed that xenon was an “inert” gas and supposedly could not be combined with other atoms. At the time of his death, in 1982, Quarterman had initiated work on a project to develop “synthetic blood” but encountered ethical and political opposition to his research. Manhattan Project: Black Scientists and Technicians,

Wisdom Institute University Excerpted from BlackPast.org


Edwin Robert Russell

Born in Columbia, South Carolina on June 19, 1913, Edwin Roberts Russell worked on the Manhattan Project. Russell earned his B.S. degree in 1935 from Benedict College, an (HBCU) located in Columbia, South Carolina and continued his education at Howard University where he earned an M.S. degree in chemistry in 1937.

He entered the University of Chicago to pursue a Ph.D. in surface chemistry and became one of the scientists directly involved in the production of atomic energy. His efforts focused on isolating plutonium from uranium. Other African American scientists who worked with Russell included Harold Delaney, Moddie Taylor, Jasper Brown Jeffries, and Benjamin F. Scott.

Russell later obtained eleven U.S. patents including two focused on the processes of isolating plutonium from uranium (U.S. Patent 2,855,629, Oct. 7, 1958; U.S. Patent 2,992,249, July 11, 1961).


George Warren Reed

Born in Washington D.C on September 25, 1920, Reed spent his entire career as a chemist specializing in a variety of fields within the discipline. In 1942 he received a BS degree from Howard University and two years later an M.S. Both degrees were in chemistry. He then completed his PhD at the University of Chicago in 1952, after his work with the Manhattan Project.

Reed worked on obtaining enough fissionable uranium to produce and sustain a nuclear reaction.

He was also on the lunar sample planning team with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from 1972 to 1980. After the first moon landing Reed was given the opportunity to analyze the sample of moon rock in a nuclear reactor; he eventually concluded that the rock contained minerals not found on earth.


Ralph Garner-Chavis

Ralph Alexander Gardner, hard plastics pioneer and one of the scientists and technicians who worked on the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bomb, was born December 3, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio, son of Vivian and Clarence Gardner. He engaged in highly classified plutonium research which was crucial in the development of the atomic bomb.

From 1947 to 1949 he worked as a waiter before finding work as a chemist for Standard Oil Company in Cleveland. He returned to graduate school at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio, earning a master's degree in 1952 and a Ph.D. in 1959; in 1985 he then began employment at Molecular Technology Corporation where he eventually became Vice President of Research.

He added "Chavis" to his surname later in life to honor John Chavis who in 1792 became the first African American to enroll in Princeton University.


Robert Johnson Omohundro

Born in Norfolk, VA in 1921 Omohundro graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk and earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a master’s in physics from Howard University in Washington, DC. After graduation he worked as a radio tester with the Western Electric Company.

Omohundro's contribution to the atom bomb project was his work as a mass spectroscopist. Mass spectrometry (MS) is a common technique that scientists use to help identify particles in samples by their mass. During World War II Omohundro, who worked at a secret facility in Arizona, was also responsible for developing devices to locate and measure radiation emissions from atomic warheads.

From1948 to 1984, Omohundro continued developing technology at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. Which included devices that prevent the propagation of plutonium at airfields. In 1963 and 1971, he obtained two patents in the field of nuclear physics.

Over the course of his career Omohundro authored and co-authored 40 scientific articles.


Reference Sources

BlackPast.orgMathematicians of the African Diaspora

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