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Between 1942 and the late 1950s, atomic piles (nuclear chain reactors) were industrialized to generate plutonium for the first atomic weapons and later to serve as copious sources of neutrons, radioisotopes, and electrical power. As nuclear aims expanded both during and afterWorldWar II, scientific expertise and engineering experience merged. Yet so-called atomic scientists were the most visible representatives of the postwar field, and American engineers increasingly sought greater recognition of their nonsubordinate role as nuclear experts. Large companies in the United States supplied the engineering labor for this new technology and played an important role in defining the nature of their nuclear expertise, repeatedly renegotiating the hierarchy of science versus engineering. The most influential was E. I. Du Pont de Nemours, responsible for the earliest plutonium-production reactors at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford,Washington, between 1942 and 1946, and of the next generation of reactors at Savannah River, South Carolina, between 1950 and 1989. In these facilities, the company integrated technical experts to create a sustainable nuclear workforce unlike the career niches fostered at the new national laboratories. This article explores the transition of authority from scientists to nuclear engineers at those sites, and DuPont's role in shaping and consolidating this new expertise.1
The emergence of engineering knowledge is of considerable interest for understanding how innovation and technical practices become embedded in the working cultures of industries.While nuclear technology has generated vast scholarship, relatively little attention has been devoted to its engineering specialists. Alfred Chandler and others have characterized DuPont as a paradigm U.S. corporation and effective wartime contractor. David Hounshell has sketched the company's influence in creating the discipline of chemical engineering, but discusses the professional dimensions of nuclear technology relatively little, although nuclear-production sites and lower-tier employees have received attention from others. Andrew Abbott has defined an enduring framework for understanding the emergence of technical experts in terms of competition among professions for intellectual terrain, occupational sites, and status. Studies of twentieth-century U.S. engineers have highlighted social and political dimensions, particularly their engagement with wider corporate aims and developing themes of social responsibility.2
The growth of nuclear technology parallels more recent technologies in terms of the pace of its development and the nature of its organization. The field was directed and rapidly expanded by...