Legacies of the Manhattan Project: Reflections on 75 Years of a Nuclear World

At the Hanford History Project’s March 2017 Legacies of the Manhattan Project at 75 Years conference, professionals from a broad range of backgrounds–working scientists, government employees, retired health physicists, downwinders, representatives from community groups, impassioned lay people, as well as scholars working in different academic fields–attended and gave presentations. Covering topics from print journalism, activism, nuclear testing, and science and education to health physics, environmental cleanup, and atomic kitsch, their essays along with newly commissioned research, deepen our understanding of familiar matters and illuminate historical corners and crevices unexplored by earlier academic generations. By illuminating facets of the Manhattan Project’s continuing impact, they demonstrate that the past lives on.