Hanford Oral History Project

• In Event: OHA Poster Session and Project Bazaar

Abstract

The Hanford Oral History Project seeks to capture and tell the stories of the Hanford Nuclear Site, one of the three production and research sites of the WWII Manhattan Engineering Project. These emphasize the history of the pre-Manhattan Project communities, as well as the experience of Manhattan Project-era workers. Currently the oral histories also seek to explore the post-war agricultural history of the Tri-Cities region, the history of the Cold War era, with an emphasis on civil rights, and eventually hope to expand to the cleanup phase. Most are online at http://www.hanfordhistory.com/. Since its inception in 2014, the project has undertaken approximately 100 interviews. The parent project, the Hanford History Project, has collected the oral histories of the B Reactor Museum Association, the Herbert M. Parker Foundation, and the former Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology museum. These collections are also focused on the Hanford Nuclear Site and its contributions to engineering, technology, and health physics. They are fully available to researchers and the public and together the Hanford Oral History Project holds approximately 300 oral histories while continuing to produce new oral histories at the rate of 4-5 per month.

Author

• Robert Franklin, Washington State University