NARRATOR: To provide even more power, TVA built dams quicker than they'd ever been built before. Douglas Dam, two-hundred feet high and 17-hundred feet across, went up in just 12 months.
Poster "these dams are vital to defense"
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Government posters stressed how important dam construction was.
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Arms factories
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\Throughout the valley, peacetime production was converted to manufacturing the materiel of war. Fertilizer factories retooled, to make ammonium nitrate, essential for bombs, grenades and bullets. The valley turned out 300-tons of ammonium nitrate every day. Textile mills made tents and uniforms to supply the millions of soldiers headed overseas. Four-and-a-half million pairs of boots were produced here during the war.
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aluminum production, airplane production, B-29’s in flight
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The valley's most important product was aluminum. It takes tremendous amounts of energy to refine aluminum. A single roll requires enough power to run a typical house for years. During World War Two, aluminum meant air power. Training planes were built right in the valley. And huge shipments of aluminum were sent to factories elsewhere to build the Superfortress, the B-29. A single B-29 bomber required 10 tons of aluminum. Without the rapid production of these mighty machines, America might not have ruled the skies of the Pacific.
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men construct Oak Ridge
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TVA made another key contribution to America's war machine, one that most people didn't know at the time. TVA provided power for a secret city of 50-thousand people. A city with a mission so important that no one was allowed to talk about it. Oak Ridge would refine uranium to build the most destructive device ever invented--the atom bomb.
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Atom bomb blast
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TVA became a crucial part of the war effort--and in doing so, ensured its own survival.
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dip to black
Segment Title: A Living Legacy
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Modern aerials of dams
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