Wed Sep 6, 2023
12:00 - 1:00 pm
Friends of History ONLINE Wednesday Lecture Series
The First Atomic Bomb Test: The Trinity Test in New Mexico
Please join Janet Farrell Brodie, Professor Emerita of US History at Claremont Graduate University, for an ONLINE talk as she explores the history of the Trinity test and its complicated aftermath, as part of our Friends of History Lecture Series.
On July 16, 1945, just weeks before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, that brought about the end of World War II, the United States detonated the world’s first atomic bomb at the Trinity testing site located in the remote Tularosa Basin in south-central New Mexico. Janet Farrell Brodie explores the history of the Trinity test and its complicated aftermath. She will share some of her research into the everyday experiences of the little-known people who contributed to the test’s success — the men who built and worked at the site, along with the ranchers whose land became the test site — as well as the downwinders who suffered the consequences of the radiation. Her study concentrates on these ordinary people who lived in the region and participated in the testing.
Janet Farrell Brodie is a professor emerita of US History at Claremont Graduate University (California), recently retired after 25 years. She is the author of The First Atomic Bomb: The Trinity Site in New Mexico. Her focus has been on researching, writing, and teaching about secrecy and American wars. She has published articles on atomic secrecy in multiple venues, including the Journal of Social History and the Journal of Diplomatic History and in the edited volume, Inevitably Toxic: Historical Perspectives on Contamination, Exposure, and Expertise.
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Photo credit: Courtesy of the University of Nebraska Press
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