Teaching with Primary Sources The Federation of Independent Illinois Colleges and Universities
	Using the Library of Congress to Advantage to Study Manhattan Project Kate Gibson and Angela Wilson
For the Student	The Manhattan Project was developed during World War II, in response to fears over Nazi engineering. The Manhattan Engineer District (MED) refers mainly to the time period 1942-1946, during which the United States developed the first atomic weapon. American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer led the research under the administration of General Leslie Groves of the Army Corp of Engineers. Though the project started from a small research program in 1939, is would eventually cost around 2 billion dollars and employ several thousands of people. The Project occupied three primary sites, though the most noted is the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The project was successful in the development of nuclear weapons. The weapon developed in the Manhattan Project would eventually lead to the destruction of two Japanese cities in 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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