Amid fears that German scientists might already be well on their way to creating a chain reaction, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the fall of 1941 approved a full-scale effort to apply atomic theory to the design and construction of a new military weapon. Arthur Holly Compton, Nobel laureate and professor of physics at the University of Chicago, was placed in charge of the program, which was named the Manhattan Project. Compton and colleagues decided that the work of building and operating a test reactor would be concentrated in Chicago under the code name Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab).
Early in 1942 Enrico Fermi and groups of scientists began to arrive at Chicago, where they collaborated on refinements in the design of a nuclear pile. After plans to build the reactor at a remote site on the outskirts of Chicago were blocked by a labor strike, construction shifted quickly to a space beneath the West Stand of Stagg Field on the University of Chicago campus. Originally designed for racquetball, the room had been in use more recently as a squash court.
Henry DeWolf Smyth. A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945.
Rare Book Collection, gift of Diana King, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Henry DeWolf Smyth. A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945.
Rare Book Collection, gift of Diana King, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Arthur H. Compton, group photograph, undated
University of Chicago Photographic Archive, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Enrico Fermi, photograph, undated
University of Chicago Photographic Archive, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Exponential test pile, University of Chicago, photograph, 1942
University of Chicago News Office Records, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Herbert Anderson, "Organization of the Metallurgical Project," manuscript, September 17, 1942
Herbert L. Anderson Papers, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Henry DeWolf Smyth. A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945.
Rare Book Collection, gift of Diana King, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Henry DeWolf Smyth. A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945.
Rare Book Collection, gift of Diana King, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Stagg Field West Stand, photograph, undated
University of Chicago Photographic Archive, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Stagg Field West Stand, squash court, photograph, undated
University of Chicago News Office Records, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Summer session, photograph, 1941
Marvin Wilkening Papers, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Enrico Fermi pile notes, November 29, 1942
Marvin Wilkening Papers, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center