Oak Ridge Nuclear Lab footage from the Early 50’s

This footage, shot in the early 1950’s, was found in the National Archives under the Records of the Atomic Energy Commission. It shows the early work done at Oak Ridge, including scenes of testing “exposed” workers for radiation. My favorite scene, toward the end, shows a museum exhibit modeling the “Gaseous Diffusion” process that was used to collect and concentrate Uranium 238, the method used to accumulate enough material for the first Atomic Bombs. It looks a lot like the high tech equipment used each night to pick lottery winners!

I captured this video using a mirrorless digital camera directly from a 35mm film work print displayed on the flatbed film viewers available for use in the National Archives Research Room. It was captured at 23.976 frames per second, close to the native 24fps film frame rate, so no film “flicker”. Of course, much better quality is available from a high quality scanner using archival film elements, but this produces a perfectly serviceable “screener” for editorial purposes.