Dr. Alvin Weinberg
In a quiet corner of the Discovery Room inside the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge is an exhibit celebrating Alvin Weinberg, the visionary nuclear physicist who became director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1955 and founded the Institute for Energy Analysis at ORAU in 1975, where he worked until he retired in 1985.
In addition to being a key figure in the Manhattan Project, Weinberg invented a new type of nuclear reactor cooled by molten salt, which could not melt down. He coined the term, “Big Science,” to describe large-scale industrial efforts like the Manhattan Project, and was a founder of the American Nuclear Society, serving as the organization’s fifth president. Weinberg was a prolific author and, in 1977, rang the earliest alarm bells about the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on global average temperatures.
The centerpiece of the exhibit – the first stage of much larger plans to honor Weinberg – is a kiosk where visitors can view documents, photographs, videos, and other items from the scientist’s archive. A QR code on the kiosk will take museum goers to the online archive, featuring an extensive collection of documents from 210 boxes full of Weinberg’s research papers correspondence, photographs and other items spanning nearly 50 years of his career beginning in 1940.
A soft opening of the exhibit was held recently for supporters and volunteers of the Weinberg Papers Archive Project, which led to the creation of the exhibit.
Why the Children’s Museum?
You may be wondering how a children’s museum gets possession of 210 boxes full of papers from one of the world’s great scientists?
One word: trust.
Weinberg and Selma Shapiro, a community leader who was director of the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge from 1973 to 2004, became friends while involved with Awareness House, a safe alternative hangout for young people to discourage drug use, launched by Girl Scout Troop 69 that was funded by a Reader’s Digest grant. When Awareness House failed, remaining grant dollars combined with funds raised from the sale of its office equipment were given to the Girl Scouts to launch what became the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge in 1973.
Selma Shapiro with children at CMOR, courtesy of Ronnie Bogard
“Alvin was really taken with the Children’s Museum,” said Ronnie Bogard, Shapiro’s daughter, and a member of the CMOR advisory board who has spearheaded a more than seven-year effort to make Weinberg’s papers publicly accessible through the museum.
He was so impressed by the museum and Shapiro’s work that she became the person he entrusted to care for his personal papers so they would not be lost or destroyed.
Weinberg’s papers were given to the Children’s Museum in 1986, after he retired from ORAU.
“The Weinberg records have historical value and provide valuable insights into important decisions and developments which involved early Oak Ridge history and are likely to impact future science and technology developments throughout the world,” reads a memorandum of understanding signed by Weinberg, Shapiro and then-ORAU Executive Director William Felling.
Two visionaries
Bogard believes Weinberg and Shapiro were both visionaries in their respective fields.
“He saw that nuclear energy could be used for the greater good; she envisioned a place where families could learn together, especially emphasizing learning about Oak Ridge history,” said Bogard. Some of the early exhibits, such as the Appalachian Exhibit and Difficult Decisions (meaning those that led to dropping the atomic bombs on Japan during World War II) covered topics that were not often taught in Oak Ridge classrooms.
The more Weinberg learned about Shapiro’s work, the more supportive he became of her efforts.
A promise kept
Shapiro had safeguarded Weinberg’s papers at CMOR for more than 25 years. After Shapiro’s death in 2011, her daughter decided to make sure Weinberg’s papers would not only survive but be accessible for many more decades.
Bogard, with the support of Beth Shea, CMOR executive director, and the museum’s board of directors, launched the Weinberg Papers Archive Project in 2017 to make Weinberg’s papers available to the public. She rallied together companies and supporters from across Oak Ridge and beyond to raise the money necessary to prepare the contents of the Weinberg collection for long-term storage in archival boxes and on steel shelves, to hire an expert to sort and catalog every item, and to digitize the contents of the boxes and make them searchable online.
The Weinberg Papers Archive Project has been a labor of love for Bogard, who says she is fulfilling the promise her mother made to Weinberg to preserve and protect his papers.
Weinberg died in 2006 and Shapiro in 2011, but their combined legacy lives on at CMOR.