The Importance of the Chicago Pile Operations

Leona Marshall kept her pregnancy a secret from Enrico Fermi, head of the Chicago Pile Operations. Doctors expressed concern about her fertility and egg cells she could be jeopardizing by working so closely with radioactive material. She gave birth to a healthy boy in the hospital in 1944. Leona survived the radiation and having the child; her work paved the way for the atomic bombs to be built and dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.