COUNTY NEWS RELEASE
At 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, the Trinity Test explosion of the first atomic bomb changed the world forever. The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan followed soon after, but it was the first blast in what is now known as White Sands Missile Range that marked the beginning of the nuclear age. In southern New Mexico, although the Manhattan Project was still top secret, everyday people witnessed the test, experienced its light and power, felt the earth move and knew the world had changed.
In The Manhattan Project Trinity Test: Witnessing the Bomb in New Mexico, author Elva K. Österreich shares the stories of the Manhattan Project as told through oral histories of those who worked at the Trinity site, and the farmers, ranchers, and their families who woke to an unimaginable brightness, uninformed of the nature of the blast, and the “earth shaking” consequences of the birth of the nuclear age. The book is an objective accounting of a controversial event that changed everything for humankind.
Join Los Alamos County Library System for a discussion with author Elva Österreich about her book The Manhattan Project Trinity Test: Witnessing the Bomb in New Mexico at 7pm, Thursday, Sept. 9. This event is presented in partnership with Los Alamos Japan Institute and will be streamed via Zoom. Learn more and register on the library events calendar: https://laconm.libcal.com/event/8105057
Elva K. Österreich has been a journalist, photographer, and editor in Southern New Mexico for 20 years. She has written thousands of newspaper and magazine articles about the state’s history, people, and environment. She especially loves the stories she hears from the old-timers and is fascinated by the way folks used to live. Österreich is a member the New Mexico Humanities Council, has a poetry blog, has served as a La Leche League leader, and as an organizer with the Alamogordo Speaker’s Series, where she discovered her love for sharing the stories of those who would not otherwise be heard while speaking with survivors of the Bataan Death March.