The Girls of Atomic City

Celia, a “wavy-haired 24-year-old” dressed in “her brand-new dress” (3) takes a long train ride to an unknown destination. She shares this “secrecy-soaked adventure” with “a small group of women” (3) who are likewise unaware of where their journey will end. As she moves further from the poor, declining mining town where she was born, she wonders “Where am I going? What will I be doing?” because, “for her new employment and soon-to-be home, ‘secret’ [is] the operative word,” repeated so often that it “render[s] the most innocuous questions audaciously nosy” (4).  

Celia accepts that “secrets [are] secrets for a reason” (4). Besides, in a country where “war permeate[s] every aspect of existence, from sugar, gas, meat rations to scrap metal drives and the draft,” how can “she or anyone heading to a good, safe job complain?” (5). Like Celia, the other “women on the train [have] been told that their new jobs [serve] one purpose only: to bring a speedy and victorious end to the war” (7). Taking the job is “how Celia [is] doing her part” (7) to contribute to the war effort.

Celia had taken a job in the civil service working for the State Department in Washington, DC with a salary far exceeding her previous earnings as a secretary.