Filmmaker Keith McDaniel has completed a nine-year project to document the oral histories of about 400 current and former Oak Ridge residents, including those connected to the Manhattan Project during World War II.

The life stories were used to build a digital collection for the Oak Ridge Public Library’s Center for Oak Ridge Oral History, or COROH. McDaniel was part of the group that made plans for the COROH and, following the city’s receipt of an annual grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, took the contract for the documentary work.

“A lot of original Oak Ridgers were dying and getting older,” McDaniel said in a press release from Carson-Newman University. “We felt it was really important to collect their memories, to collect their stories.”

The one-on-one filmed interviews gave those connected to the Manhattan Project, and later to the city at large, the opportunity to share their life stories, the press release said.

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