Archives Spotlight: The top secret Hanford Project
More than 51,000 people worked at the Hanford site between 1943 and 1945. Less than 500 knew what they were making. Plutonium is a radioactive element derived from uranium, and was discovered at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1941. Scientist Glenn Seaborg wrote a detailed description of plutonium and its potential uses. It could be a plentiful energy source, or used as a component in a major explosive weapon, he wrote. Of course, the creative insights fell upon deaf…