Joyce C. Stearns

Joyce Clennam Stearns (June 23, 1893 – June 11, 1948) was an American physicist and an administrator on the Manhattan Project.[1] He served as the Director of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago from November 1944 through July 1945.[2]

Joyce Stearns has frequently been identified as a member of the Target Committee that selected the Japanese cities onto which the first atomic bombs were dropped.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] However, the oft cited Target Committee memos omit the given names or initials of “Dr. Stearns.” [10][11][12] General Leslie Groves' memoirs identify his appointee "J.C. Stearns" as coming "from [General Henry H.] Arnold’s office.”[3] Scholars including Gene Dannen and Sean Malloy have noted that an error must have been introduced in Groves' memoir, perhaps by a copy editor, as Dr. Robert L. Stearns was indeed affiliated with Arnold's office as a civilian who conducted operational research for the air force during the war,[13] while Joyce Stearns was then Director of the Met Lab. It therefore seems probable that Robert, and not Joyce, was the Dr. Stearns who served on the Target Committee.[14]

Joyce Stearns was one of the seven prominent physicists who signed the Franck Report in June 1945, urging that the atomic bombs not be dropped in a populated area.[15][16]

Stearns’ other duties at the Met Lab included training personnel who would be sent to the plutonium enrichment facility in Hanford, Washington.[17] Stearns was also responsible for recruiting numerous other scientists into the Manhattan Project, including his former student Harold Agnew, who went on to become the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory,[18] and Darol Froman, who became the Deputy Director of LANL in the postwar years.[19]

Stearns resigned from the Manhattan Project in July 1945 to become Dean of Faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, following his friend, colleague, and former mentor Arthur Compton, who became Chancellor.[20] Stearns held this position for only three years, before he died of cancer on June 11, 1948.[1]

Compton wrote Stearns' obituary for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was founded by members of the Franck Committee immediately following the war. In it, Compton acknowledged Stearns' contributions to the Manhattan Project, but emphasized his accomplishments before it and outside of it.[20] He noted: Stearns grew up in the vicinity of Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and he earned his bachelor's degree at the now defunct Kingfisher College. After earning his master's and doctoral degrees in physics at the University of Chicago under Compton, Stearns went on to become a professor and later chairman of the department of physics at the University of Denver. His research there included investigation of cosmic rays at a high altitude laboratory atop Mount Evans. In the course of establishing his laboratory there, Stearns worked with Denver City Parks to have a road to the summit built.[21] The scenic byway remains the highest paved road in the United States.[22]

References
  1. "Dr. J. C. Stearns". Physics Today. 1 (4): 30. August 1948. doi:10.1063/1.3066128. ISSN 0031-9228.
  2. "The Manhattan Project and predecessor organizations". Array of Contemporary American Physicists. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
  3. Groves, Leslie (1962). Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project. New York: Harper. p. 268. ISBN 978-0-306-70738-4. OCLC 537684.
  4. Bernstein, Barton (Spring 1991). "Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking about Tactical Nuclear Weapons". International Security. 15 (4): 149–173. doi:10.2307/2539014. JSTOR 2539014.
  5. Kunetka, James (2015). The General and the Genius. Washington: Regnery History. p. 342. ISBN 978-1621573388.
  6. Thorpe, Charles (2008). Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect. University of Chicago Press. p. 151.
  7. Jones, Vincent (1985). Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb. Washington: Center of Military History. pp. 528.
  8. Ham, Paul (August 6, 2015). "The Atlantic". The Bureaucrats Who Singled Out Hiroshima for Destruction. Retrieved June 23, 2016.
  9. "Joyce Stearns". Atomic Heritage Foundation.
  10. "Notes on Initial Meeting of Target Committee" (PDF). National Security Archive. George Washington University. April 27, 1945.
  11. "Minutes of the second meeting of the Target Committee Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945". Dannen.com.
  12. "Minutes of the Third Target Committee Meeting" (PDF). National Security Archives. George Washington University. May 28, 1945.
  13. Davis, Wiliam E. "President Robert L. Stearns". CU Heritage Center. Archived from the original on August 26, 2016.
  14. Malloy, Sean (April 4, 2009). "Four Days in May: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb" (PDF). The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. 7 (14). ISSN 1557-4660. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  15. "The Franck Report, June 11, 1945". Dannen.com.
  16. Smith, Alison Kimball (October 1958). "Behind the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb: Chicago 1944-1945". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 14 (8): 288–312. Bibcode:1958BuAtS..14h.288S. doi:10.1080/00963402.1958.11453876.
  17. Compton, Arthur (August 1948). "In Memoriam: Joyce Clennam Stearns". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 4 (8): 235. Bibcode:1948BuAtS...4h.235C. doi:10.1080/00963402.1948.11460230. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
  18. "Harold Agnew's Interview (1992)". Manhattan Project Voices. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  19. Froman, Darol. Oral History Interview given on June 7, 1976. Transcript from American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library. TS. p26.
  20. Compton, Arthur (August 1948). "In Memoriam: Joyce Clennam Stearns". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 4 (8): 235. Bibcode:1948BuAtS...4h.235C. doi:10.1080/00963402.1948.11460230. Retrieved April 7, 2016.
  21. Stearns, Joyce (March 1938). "The Mount Evans Laboratory". The Scientific Monthly. 46: 242–248.
  22. Snyder, Karl. "Mount Evans Scenic Byway and Wilderness". Retrieved April 7, 2016.

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