Nuclear museum to host virtual event on gay Manhattan Project scientist

June 23, 2022, 3:03PMANS Nuclear Cafe

John Ibson

In an era where being openly gay could get you blacklisted, how was one scientist able to keep his high-security clearance level with the Manhattan Project and beyond? To find out, attend the virtual event “A ‘Lavender Lad’ with a Security Clearance: A Gay Scientist and Homophobia in Midcentury America” on June 24 at 4:00 p.m. (EDT). The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History is sponsoring the event and the featured speaker is John Ibson, professor emeritus of American studies at California State University–Fullerton.

The webinar, which requires advance registration, is free for members of the museum. Members can obtain a promo code by emailing the museum’s membership associate, Jennifer Thompson. For others, the registration fee is $10.

Claude Schwob

What’s it about: Ibson will discuss “the effect that WW II and the McCarthy Era had on the lives of queer people in the 20th century.” His talk will highlight the story of Claude Schwob, an openly gay chemist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later at the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory in San Francisco and eventually became one of the foremost experts on radiation.

About the speaker: Ibson is an award-winning educator, historian, and author known for his focus on issues related to masculinity and sexuality in the United States. His books include Picturing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography; The Mourning After: Loss and Longing among Midcentury American Men; and Men without Maps: Some Gay Males of the Generation before Stonewall.

Further information: Additional information about the event can be obtained by emailing the museum.


Related Articles

Taking aim at disease

Radioisotopes target cancer, improve imaging, and have myriad other medical uses

February 16, 2024, 3:02PMNuclear NewsKristi Nelson Bumpus

On August 2, 1946, 1 millicurie of the isotope carbon-14 left Oak Ridge National Laboratory, bound for the Barnard Free Skin and Cancer Hospital in St. Louis, Mo.That tiny amount of the...

Charting nuclear reactors

May 31, 2023, 12:05PMNuclear News

Not everyone in the nuclear industry is familiar with a series of 105 historic wall charts displaying detailed illustrations of nuclear reactors and their internal components, but Ronald A....

The earliest DT nuclear fusion discoveries

April 13, 2023, 3:01PMNuclear NewsM. B. Chadwick, M. W. Paris, G. M. Hale, J. P. Lestone, C. Bates, and S. A. Andrews

Fusion energy research has seen exciting recent breakthroughs. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has achieved ignition,1,2 and in the United...

The Hanford B Reactor

February 13, 2023, 11:49AMNuclear NewsJeremy Hampshire

In remote southeastern Washington you will find the sprawling Hanford Site, which was constructed to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project. Within this complex is the first plutonium...