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Kay Secrist manuscript, Date acquired: 2004-10-26, Date accessioned: 2020-04-21, bulk 1942-1945

 

Summary

Creator:
Secrist, Kay (1923-)
Sinco, Holly
Extent:
1 folders
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[Title of Item], [Date of Item], [Box and Folder number], Kay Secrist manuscript, Special Collections & Archives, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida. http://purl.fcla.edu/fsu/WWII_04_0281.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection related to Kay Secrist, a worker and later a floor foreman for the Y-12 Facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where she was involved with uranium production for the Manhattan Project. The collection contains one folder with a 45-page typed transcript of an oral history interview.

Biographical / historical:

Kay Secrist (née Kimsey) was born in 1923 in Sparta, Tennessee. She had multiple siblings, including an older brother who served in the Pacific during World War II. Secrist's father was a brick-layer and construction worker who could not find work during the Great Depression, and her mother taught music to low-income families to bring in extra money. As a kid, she and her sister performed acrobatics at the local fairs. Secrist played piano and saxophone during high school and received a scholarship to Tennessee Tech to play in their band. Secrist attended Tennessee Tech from Spring 1942 to Summer 1943. She studied physics and drafting in the school of engineering. Despite the university having a majority of women attending, Secrist was the only woman in her drafting classes. She took up drafting because she wanted to work with her father; she would design buildings and he would construct them. Unfortunately, her father died during Summer 1943, and she was unable to fulfill that dream. She interviewed with the Clinton Engineering Works in the Summer 1943 and took the job to help the war effort as she was still too young to join the Women's Army Corps. At the Clinton Engineering Works, also known as Oak Ridge, she initially worked as a drafter, designing the new town and facilities for the military's secret base. After another company took over construction, she was transferred to work at the Y-12 facility, where they produced the uranium used in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. At the time, the women working in Y-12 did not know what the military was producing; they knew that it involved a strong magnetic field, and they knew where to set the dials at their stations to keep operations working. Secrist became a floor foreman in 1945 and supervised 24 cubicles to keep up production. One day she met General Leslie Groves--the director of the Manhattan Project--when he walked down her floor; she did not know who he was at the time, only that he was important. Oak Ridge was a secret city that was not plotted on any maps. Workers lived on the base and wore their ID cards at all times. Secrist described housing for singles as dorm-like. When the women were not working their shifts, they participated in organized activities on campus, including sports teams for softball, basketball, and swimming. She never discussed her work or pay with her coworkers; they knew it was secret and for the war. Because of the isolated nature of Oak Ridge, Secrist was not particularly aware of what was happening during World War II and was not hit as financially hard as her family back home was because of the Depression and the war. In August 1945, after the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Secrist realized their work at Oak Ridge was connected. The workers finally learned that their facilities produced the uranium used in the bombs. Secrist remained at Oak Ridge until Summer 1946 and used the money she saved to attend the University of Tennessee. She graduated with a fine arts degree in English, and later met her husband, Phil Secrist. He was in the Marines, and the Navy Reserves, and briefly served in the Korean War. After returning, he joined the university's Army ROTC program and graduated with a commission. They moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, where they had two children. Later, the Secrists attended Auburn University; Kay earned a teaching degree and Phil received his master's degree. They moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where they were teachers. Kay Secrist believed that working at Oak Ridge during World War II changed the direction of her life, and offered her opportunities she would not have otherwise had. At the time of her interview, she was working on a book chronicling her eventful life. Kay gave an interview in 2005 to Atlanta in September 2005. The interview can be found at https://books.google.com/books?id=rA8AAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=kay+secrist&source=bl&ots=9UjAtHVHU9&sig=ACfU3U187LpWznm4x32xGcQFr9waBGXjvA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjNpMWQl_roAhXHm-AKHZjyD5cQ6AEwEXoECFwQAQ#v=onepage&q=kay%20secrist&f=false. Kay's husband Phil passed in September 2008. His obituary can be found at https://www.mayeswarddobbins.com/obituaries/Philip-Secrist-150/#!/Obituary.

Acquisition information:
This oral transcript was given by Kay Secrist. It was acquired by the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience on October 26, 2004.
Custodial history:

Transferred from the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience to FSU Libraries Special Collections & Archives in July 2022.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

This collection is open to all researchers.

Terms of access:

All requests for permission to quote, publish, broadcast or otherwise reproduce from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Associate Dean for Special Collections & Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Florida State University Libraries as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

Preferred citation:

[Title of Item], [Date of Item], [Box and Folder number], Kay Secrist manuscript, Special Collections & Archives, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida. http://purl.fcla.edu/fsu/WWII_04_0281.

Location of this collection:
116 Honors Way
Tallahassee
FL
32306-2047
USA