1. Charlotte Serber was an American journalist, statistician and librarian.
21 Facts About Charlotte Serber
1. 2.
Charlotte Serber was the librarian of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, and the laboratory's only female group leader.
3.
Charlotte Serber later became a production assistant for the Broadway Theatre, and an interviewer for Louis Harris.
4.
Charlotte Serber had an older brother, Milton, and an older sister, Madeline.
5.
Charlotte Serber's father was a member of the Socialist Party of America and was involved in left-wing activities.
6.
Charlotte Serber entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1929 and graduated in 1933.
7.
Charlotte Serber's father was the uncle of his stepmother, and they had known each other for many years.
8.
From 1933 to 1935, Charlotte worked as a freelance journalist, writing articles for newspapers like the Boston Globe.
9.
Charlotte Serber's work included an interview with the architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
10.
Robert and Charlotte Serber packed up and began the drive to Princeton, but en route they stopped at Ann Arbor, Michigan, to attend a summer school at the University of Michigan, where Robert met Robert Oppenheimer, and decided then and there that he would study at the University of California, Berkeley, instead.
11.
Charlotte Serber was reluctant to do so, but was convinced by Isidor Isaac Rabi, who reminded him that there were few tenure-track academic positions for Jews.
12.
Charlotte Serber was politically active, serving as secretary of the Medical Aid Committee for Spain at Berkeley during the Spanish Civil War, and later of the Aid to Britain, Aid to China, and Aid to Russia Committees during World War II.
13.
Charlotte Serber was involved with the League of Women Voters.
14.
Robert and Charlotte Serber set out for Berkeley again in April 1942.
15.
Charlotte Serber instituted the system of security passes, which were typewritten letters signed by Oppenheimer.
16.
Charlotte Serber became the only female group leader at the Los Alamos Laboratory.
17.
Charlotte Serber acknowledged that they might have looked unusual to outsiders:.
18.
Charlotte Serber was not permitted to view the Trinity Test, ostensibly because the test site had no facilities for women, but after the war, Oppenheimer acknowledged the importance of the job that she had done, writing to her on November 2,1945:.
19.
Charlotte Serber attempted to secure a position as a librarian at the Radiation Laboratory in 1946, but was rejected because she could not obtain a security clearance.
20.
Charlotte Serber suffered from depression after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and took her own life with an overdose of sleeping pills on May 22,1967.
21.
Charlotte Serber was portrayed in the Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer by actress Jessica Erin Martin.