Manhattan Project Photography Lecture

For six decades, the Manhattan Project photos taken by John “Mike” Michnovicz have appeared in publications, articles, and documentaries. Tech sergeant John Michnovicz was a photographer in Los Alamos, New Mexico for the Manhattan Project but was never credited for any photos because he was a soldier from the Special Engineer Detachment sent to the secret project.
In the early 2000s, Michnovicz’s daughter, Toni Michnovicz Gibson, archived her dad’s collection of approximately 1,000 photos and documents and spent hours with him recording an oral history of his recollections and memories of that time. Toni and her brother Jon published a selection of these photos in the book titled Los Alamos 1944-1947.In 2023, Toni discovered her dad’s 25th Manhattan Project reunion slide show from 1970. She had it restored and digitized. Her dad created the show that combined several hundred personal and Manhattan Project photos. He presented it to his friends and fellow soldiers at the reunion as a look back at their experience from the 1940s.