Olwell, Russell B. 1969-

views updated

Olwell, Russell B. 1969-

PERSONAL:

Born 1969. Education: Wellesley College, teaching certificate, 1997; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D., 1997.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Eastern Michigan University, Department of History and Philosophy, 701 Pray-Harrold, Ypsilanti, MI 48197. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Academic and historian. Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, assistant professor, then associate professor of history of technology and director of the EMU Gear Up Project. Kyoritsu Women's University Fulbright lecturer, 2007.

WRITINGS:

At Work in the Atomic City: A Labor and Social History of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, University of Tennessee Press (Knoxville, TN), 2004.

Contributor to journals, including the History Teacher, OAH Newsletter, History Matters, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Social Education, Science & Society, Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society, and Teaching History: A Journal of Methods.

SIDELIGHTS:

Russell B. Olwell is an academic and historian. Born in 1969, Olwell earned both a teaching certificate from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997. He began working as an assistant professor at Ypsilanti's Eastern Michigan University and was later promoted to associate professor of history of technology. Olwell is the director of the Eastern Michigan University Gear Up Project, which aids over a thousand eighth-grade students from a low-income bracket to improve their study skills with the hopes of giving them a better chance at succeeding in high school.

Olwell published his first book, At Work in the Atomic City: A Labor and Social History of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 2004. The book looks at the industrial activities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where weapons-grade uranium was processed and ultimately used in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Olwell focuses primarily on the community itself, as opposed to the wartime application of its output.

Jon Hunner, reviewing the book in the Historian, described the author's strength as "detailing the labor history of the community." Hunner pointed out, however, that Olwell did not include information on the industrial process of enriching uranium and the larger role that the community at Oak Ridge played in the war. Nevertheless, Hunner concluded that the author "pays a fitting tribute to the men and women who made the sacrifices."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, June 1, 2006, Dee Garceau-Hagen, review of At Work in the Atomic City: A Labor and Social History of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, p. 860.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, September 1, 2005, B.M. Bantra, review of At Work in the Atomic City, p. 172.

Historian, fall, 2006, Jon Hunner, review of At Work in the Atomic City, p. 594.

Journal of American History, December 1, 2005, Michael J. Yavenditti, review of At Work in the Atomic City, p. 1042.

Technology and Culture, April 1, 2006, Arthur P. Molella, review of At Work in the Atomic City, p. 447.