E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Atomic Energy Division.
E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company Atomic Energy Division records, 1942-1975.
Hanford and Clinton records document the administrative history of the site, including design and operations. There is a 1944 draft of "TNX" history as well as a series of notes by Robert De Wright, special assistant at the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory, describing research and development at Hanford and the relationship that developed between J. Robert Oppenheimer and Crawford Greenewalt. Also included are design status minutes, weekly reports of the manufacturing division, and contract correspondence. There is a copy of a plutonium survey done for the Atomic Energy Commission (1947-49) and liaison reports (1952-54).
Savannah River records include correspondence on the history of negotiations between the Du Pont Company and the United States Government, site surveys, administrative correspondence, files of the manufacturing division, construction division records, design correspondence, records on waste storage, the development of the heavy water plant, and the soil investigations. Also included are technical information memoranda, records on the safety and security programs, personnel administration, and congressional oversight. The development of the site can be traced through weekly activity reports, monthly progress reports, and reports of the Field Design Group. There is also considerable correspondence with subcontractors, and the scientists and engineers at the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology and the Battelle Institute.
The Du Pont Company's involvement in the Manhattan Project (the multi-component program to develop the atomic bomb) began in the fall of 1942 when the government asked the company to serve as a subcontractor to design a plutonium separation plant. In December 1942 Du Pont signed an agreement to design and construct a pilot reactor and separation works and to operate a full-scale plutonium production and separation facility at Hanford, Washington.
The Company placed the project within its existing organizational structure. The Explosives Department created a new unit-TNX-under Assistant General Manager Roger Williams. Crawford Greenewalt headed the R&D unit and served as the liaison between Du Pont's Wilmington operations and the atomic physicists led by Arthur Compton and Enrico Fermi who were working at the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory. Less than three months after signing its initial contract, the Du Pont Company completed its first pilot scale reactor at the Clinton Engineer Works near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. By early 1945 Hanford produced enough plutonium to assemble the bombs which were tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. At the end of the war, Du Pont decided to end its involvement with the U.S. nuclear program and turned over the operation of the Hanford Works to General Electric in 1948.
In the summer of 1949, President Truman asked company president Crawford Greenewalt to assume responsibility for the design, construction and operation of a plant that would produce the next generation of atomic materials (plutonium and tritium) to be situated on the Savannah River, near Aiken, South Carolina. The Explosives Department's Atomic Engergy Division had responsibility for the administration of the site and the design and construction of the reactors. Technical services were provided by the Engineering Department. In addition to the reactors and separation plants, the site included research laboratories, offices, worker housing, and other ancillary facilities. By 1955 all five reactors were in operation. The Du Pont Company operated the Savannah River plant under a government contract which allowed it to recover expenses plus a fixed fee of $1 per year. This arrangement was established in order to insulate the company from the kind of public criticism that it had received after the First World War when it had been labelled as a "Merchant of Death". Du Pont operated the site until March 31, 1989, when it was turned over to the Westinghouse Corporation.
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Explosives Dept.
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Petrochemicals Dept.
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Polymer Intermediates Dept.
Nuclear engineering -- Safety measures.
Nuclear facilities -- Location.
Nuclear industry.
Nuclear weapons -- Safety measures.
Nuclear weapons industry.
Public relations -- Nuclear industry.
Radioactivity -- Instruments.
AIP-ICOS
Hagley Museum and Library. Manuscripts and Archives Department. 298 Buck Road East, Greenville, DE 19807, USA.