Alice Kimball Smith Explained

Alice Kimball Smith
Birth Name:Alice Marchant Kimball
Birth Date:May 8, 1907
Birth Place:Oak Park, Illinois, United States
Death Date:February 6, 2001
Occupation:Author, historian
Alma Mater:Mount Holyoke College
Yale University
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Alice Kimball Smith (1907–2001) was an American historian, writer, and teacher, particularly known from her writing from personal experience on the Manhattan Project.[1] [2] [3]

Early life and education

Smith was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1907.[1] She first went to college at Mount Holyoke College[4] where she obtained her A.B in 1928.[1] Eight years later, she got her PhD from Yale University.[5]

War years

In 1943 her and her husband Cyril moved to Los Alamos when her husband joined the Manhattan Project.[1] She soon got a teaching job in Los Alamos where her and her husband became friends with J. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty.[1] She would use her experiences around Los Alamos as material in her future books.[6] [7] [8] Smith, in her study of American A-bomb scientists interviewed many Los Alamos scientists who gave blank answers about the nature of the weapon that they were creating.[9]

Post war years

Smith and her husband moved to Chicago after World War II ended.[1] Smith became the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists assistant editor where she worked for many years.[1] She was a lecturer at Roosevelt College and a dean, assistant dean and scholar at Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study.[1] [10] Smith also briefly was a guest columnist in The New York Times in 1983.[11]

Books

Smith wrote books like A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America, 1945–1947[12] [13] and co edited (with Charles Weiner)[14] Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections[15] with the latter being a collection of letters from J. Robert Oppenheimer between 1922 and 1945.[1] [16] [17] [18] Her book A Peril and a Hope: The Scientist' Movement in America, 1945–1947 was nominated for a National Book Award for Nonfiction in the Science, Philosophy and Religion category.[19] A Peril and a Hope was about the growing negative sentiment of scientists about creating the atomic bomb due to their concerns over the sociopolitical consequences of its usage.[20]

Personal life

Alice Kimball was married to British metallurgist Cyril Smith.[1] She died on February 6, 2001, at her home in Ellensburg, Washington.[10]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Alice Kimball Smith . Atomic Heritage . November 20, 2018.
  2. Buck . Peter . Images of the Scientific 'Community': Commentary on Papers by Alice Kimball Smith and Dorothy Nelkin . Newsletter on Science, Technology, & Human Values . 24 . 1978 . 3 . 45–47 . 10.1177/016224397800300322 . 688705 . 144558873 .
  3. Web site: Alice Kimball Smith's Interview . . November 20, 2018.
  4. Web site: Alumnae meets in Concord . Newspapers.com . The Portsmouth Herald . November 20, 2018.
  5. The Leonardo Da Vinci Medal . Technology and Culture . 1967 . 8 . 2 . 310–313 . 3101992 .
  6. Web site: When-americas Scientists knew sin hiroshima 70 years anniversary . Politico . November 20, 2018. August 6, 2015 .
  7. Book: Monk . Ray . Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center . March 11, 2014 . Anchor . 978-0385722049 . 880.
  8. Book: Boyer . Paul . By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture At the Dawn of the Atomic Age . September 30, 1994 . The University of North Carolina Press . 978-0807844809 . 464 . 1st.
  9. Web site: Joravsky . David . Beyond the laboratory: scientists as political activists in 1930s America. . Highbeam (from Science) . Science . November 20, 2018.
  10. Web site: Smith, 94, former dean of the Radcliffe Institute . https://web.archive.org/web/20010719010448/https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2001/03.01/02-smith.html . dead . July 19, 2001 . Harvard Gazette . Harvard (University) Gazette . November 20, 2018.
  11. News: Limited Opportunities . The New York Times . November 20, 2018. February 6, 1983 . Smith . Alice Kimball .
  12. Wang . Jessica . Science, Security, and the Cold War: The Case of E. U. Condon . Isis . 1992 . 83 . 2 . 238–269 . 234506 . 10.1086/356112. 144208511 .
  13. Web site: Out of the lab into the lobby . Newspaper.com . The San Francisco Examiner . November 20, 2018.
  14. Web site: Oppenheimer the person is revealed in book . Newspapers.com . Albuquerque Journal . November 20, 2018.
  15. Web site: Historian of science Charles Weiner dies at 80 . MIT . February 2012 . November 20, 2018.
  16. Strout . Cushing . A Rare Gift for Complication . Reviews in American History . 2006 . 34 . 1 . 86–92 . 30031579 . 10.1353/rah.2006.0016. 144381204 .
  17. Post . Robert C. . Back at the Start: History and Technology and Culture . Technology and Culture . 2010 . 51 . 4 . 961–994 . 10.1353/tech.2010.0078 . 40928034 . 141901691 . free .
  18. Web site: This week's Radio highlights . San Francisco Examiner . November 20, 2018.
  19. Web site: National Book Awards – 1966 . National Book Foundation . November 20, 2018.
  20. Web site: 30 Jul 2000 pg 254 . Newspapers.com . San Francisco Examiner . November 20, 2018.

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