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Even 75 years after the end of the Manhattan Project—the top-secret effort to develop the atomic bomb during World War II—St. Louis is still reeling from its participation. And now, that story has been told by one of those affected.
Linda C. Morice, professor emerita at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, recounts the story lived by her family and others in Nuked: Echoes of the Hiroshima Bomb in St. Louis, out December 1 from University of Georgia Press.
Morice and her family moved to Florissant in 1958, to a home in the Coldwater Creek watershed. What they—and many others—didn’t know at the time was that the radioactive waste from Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, produced under the Manhattan Project, was being stored near the creek. Over the years, Morice writes, radioactive contaminants leached into the land, traveling downstream and exposing 47 square miles of watershed to ionizing radiation. A report from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry later stated that exposure to the contaminants could increase the risk of developing cancer or leukemia. Morice herself lost both parents and her brother to lymphoma before their 65th birthdays. Across three parts of the book, Morice explores the questions of how the contamination happened and why it was allowed to go on.
While Nuked is a history lesson, it’s also a story that’s still unfolding. Cleanup operations are expected to last through 2038, and families continue to grapple with the effects of exposure. Nuked is required reading for historians, officials, and advocates.
